by Beth Reason
Chapter 12
Jillian tugged the ridiculously frilly tie to the very center of my throat. She'd returned just a few days before, rested and looking fresh from her visit with her family and with what she called "a renewed sense of vigor for the duty at hand." I quickly learned that meant she had a fresh batch of torture clothes for me to prance around in.
"It would go a lot faster if you'd just hold still," she said, tugging once more on the scratchy thing around my throat.
"I really don't think I need a tie..."
Her thin eyebrows shot up. "Are you kidding me? You must be. Because the Jacob Cosworth I know would never been seen in an official capacity looking like a...a...vagabond!"
I actually thought I would, whatever a vagabond was. As long as he doesn't have to wear lace ties and hard, shiny shoes that pinch and bite.
"Are you certain this is the look we want to go for?" asked Christophe, walking into the room and shaking his head.
Exactly! I tugged on the tie, but Jillian batted my hand away and tightened it even further.
"He owns the school, Chris. He should look like he does."
"He funds it," he corrected. "And the goal of this tour is to maybe strike up some acquaintanceships with more people his own age." He didn't have to say I'd been failing on my own at the parties Lynette kept dragging me to.
Jillian gave a little laugh. "So you want him to go dressed as all the other children?" She shook her head. "Nope. The world expects more." She actually gave my cheek one of her annoying little pinches. "You're a Cosworth. And if your mother was here..."
"She'd be too busy in the lab to notice what I'm wearing at all."
There was laughter in Christophe's eyes, but no reprieve. In the end, he said Jillian was the expert and it was her call. However, after we left Jillian and were in the transport alone, Christophe removed his own tie and nodded for me to do the same. It was something. I also took the liberty of removing the painfully itchy suit jacket. There was nothing I could do about the shoes, or the hideous StartTech sash sewn into the dress shirt. But I supposed I couldn't have everything. It would have to do.
We pulled up in front of a very large building. I stared at the sign above the door. "Cosworth Technological High School". I had grown used to seeing my initials on things around the mansion. In spite of my continued protests, someone kept lettering the towels, dishes, terminal towers... I'd pretty much given up that fight. It was one I was obviously not going to win.
I just couldn't get over seeing my name on buildings, though. My family's money built this school and kept it running. Inside were a fleet of HuTAs and nearly one hundred humans who all relied on the income from my credits to keep it all running, to teach nearly two thousand students. It was overwhelming. As we sat and stared at the building, the heavy burden of responsibility was almost enough to make me think like Jillian and put the damn tie and coat back on.
Almost.
I turned to tell Lynette just that when I remember she was at the manor resting. We had a party the night before and she had fun. "A little too much fun," as Christophe put it when we stumbled in very late. Well, Lynette stumbled. I was fine. I tried to keep her walking straight as quietly as possible. Christophe and Ralph had both been waiting up for us. It was long past the time we were supposed to get home and it was obvious they were worried...right up until the point where they smelled the liquor on Lynette's breath. Then the worry was gone to be replaced with outright anger.
Christophe dragged Lynette up the stairs. He didn't yell simply because he's Christophe and he didn't have to. Even drunk she knew she was in hot water. Ralph forced my mouth open and took a sniff.
I pulled away. "I didn't drink anything."
He poked me in the chest. "I don't care about that nearly as much as I care about you letting her get that way. Damn it, Jake! When you escort a lady out..."
I had to laugh. "She escorted me. I didn't even want to go to this party!"
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He stared at me for a minute. He was trying to stay angry. I can always tell when he feels like he should be angry with something just because he's my guardian, even if he wouldn't give it another thought if he wasn't. "Look, kid. You're getting older and you really should learn how to treat a lady, even if she escorted you somewhere."
"She's older. She's wiser. It was her damn party, Ralph!" I knew what he was trying to say, but the facts were the facts. The plain and painful fact was that I was just a ticket in the door. It wasn't the first party Lynette went wild at. It was quickly becoming an uncomfortable habit for her to walk with me through the door, then ditch me until the end where she needed me to get her home in one piece. The night before was only the first time we got caught.
Ralph knew I was right. In hindsight, I think he knew about the other parties, too. Maybe he was just hoping she'd get it out of her system or get bored with it all. He lectured a little longer, but all the steam was gone. In the end, he told me I needed to stop taking her to the parties in the first place and sent me to bed. Christophe had dished out a punishment for Lynette, though he would not say what. She was in a world of misery that morning, both from the hangover and Christophe's censure, so I didn't want to make it worse by pestering her with questions. Whatever else the punishment entailed, it was made very clear that she was not to leave the house for days. That meant a solo trip for me to the place where I needed Lynette the most.
"Mr. Cosworth!" A short man in a bright green suit came running down the stairs towards us. He reminded me of Little Blob the way he moved and I bit my lip to keep from laughing at the comparison. Christophe nudged me and I stuck my hand out. He grabbed it and shook. And shook. And babbled. And shook.
"Nice to meet you, nice to meet you! I must say in person you could pass for any one of my students! Er, your students, I should say. Nice to meet you indeed! No doubt you've figured out that I'm Franklin Kindle, lead professor of the sciences here at Cosworth Tech." And shake. And shake.
Christophe stuck his own hand out. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Kindle."
"And Christophe Venderi himself in our midst!" He almost looked more impressed with that fact. He changed from my hand to Christophe's and rambled as he tried to pump the life out of him as well.
"I cannot tell you what a boon this visit of yours is to our little bastion of academia. Of all of the schools in the StarTech system, to visit one so small...well, I don't think I need to say what that will do for the morale of the staff and students! I've said for years we've got a top notch program, top notch. In spite of the..."
"Mr. Kindle, it seems as if we're drawing a crowd out here."
Press had parked behind our transport. I was getting used to the oppressive constant followers, the shouted questions, the endless flashing clicks.
"Oh yes, I see!" The man kept Christophe's hand in a firm grip and posed for photos.
Christophe told me later not to be annoyed about it. "He's a small man in a large school system that doesn't have enough advertisers."
"I thought I funded it?"
"Mostly. But you couldn't possibly fund the entire thing."
"I couldn't?"
"Good gracious no!" He actually let out a rare laugh. "Not when you've got fifty three others you also have to fund."
"Oh." Why didn't I just give up a couple? Put that money in the others...
"Because if you do that, then the communities in which you closed schools would have no schools. You can't fund the world, Jacob. You must do what you can. It is up to the school to raise the rest of the funds. A few pictures with you, with me, will certainly draw advertising money."
Christophe took the pictures. He gave me a nod to do the same. When the shouted questions began in earnest, he gently tugged on Kindle's elbow and we started walking into the building.
The first thing I noticed was the silence. "We're during sessions," he explained.
"I expected to hear HuTA's." We stopped in front of a large window in
to a classroom. There were easily fifty students in there, with an almost human HuTA at the front of the room. He was making motions, pointing to a map, but there was no sound at all.
"The latest, the very latest!" Obviously Kindle was proud of the silence. "Each student has a headset." I looked closer and saw a thin band on each head. "The sound goes directly to the student. It keeps the order, keeps things quiet, promotes self learning."
"What are they studying?"
He looked at the door. "One twelve is geography."
"Ah."
"Shall we get to the labs?"
I didn't mind leaving the scene. It was creepy. And it was played out again and again as we passed classroom after classroom. A large window looked into a silent world of students allegedly learning. They sat still. They sat numb. They could have been all bots for all the life they looked like they had. "Yes. Let's see the labs."
As we approached the lab wing, I was relieved to hear noises. Voices. Teaching. "It does get a bit loud down here at times." He was apologizing for something that needed no apology.
"I like the sounds," I said.
Kindle gave me a weird look, but said nothing. We stopped in front of a classroom. This one had about half the students of the others and they were at different science stations around the room. The teacher was walking around talking. I could tell immediately it was a human teacher.
"Why no HuTA?"
"It was outlawed years ago to have a HuTA in certain educational positions, experimental labs being number one."
What an interesting law. "Why?"
"A bot's good at instilling knowledge, but they don't think on their feet fast enough. There's just no way to possibly program in every potential human error. And if there's one thing that teenagers are good at, it's error!" He laughed. Christophe gave a polite laugh.
"So it's a safety measure?"
"Absolutely. As inefficient as human educators are, we are adept at seeing the look in a child's eye and catching them before the bad idea manifests." He made a motion with his hand. "We nip it in the bud. You just can't teach a bot to do that."
"What are they learning here?"
He didn't have to look at the door. This was his department, after all. "Chemistry level two. I believe this unit is on the basics of the laser propulsion units."
"Like the ones from our ships?"
He laughed. "Oh, good heavens no! Nothing that fancy. It's just level two, after all. No, this would be on small, personal use scale. Personal electricity units, the small motors that power the drives in terminals and appliances, that kind of thing."
"And that's considered chemistry? I would have thought it would be propulsions."
He seemed defensive. Christophe said later it's because I'm his boss and he felt like I was questioning the way he was running his business. I wasn't trying to. Christophe just told me to watch how I ask questions in the future.
"Yes, the basics at least. It is a chemical compound through laser receptor."
"Can we go in? I'd like to listen to what they are saying." He nodded and showed us in. We stood quietly in the back of the room.
"And what is it we get when we combine these two seemingly latent chemicals?" the teacher was asking his class. They were staring at me. The instructor turned and gave me a look...was it anger? Annoyance? "Ah, I see that Mr. Cosworth has arrived for his tour," the teacher said. "Welcome to our class."
"Thanks. Please continue your lesson."
"Maybe you can help us, Mr. Cosworth. We were just discussing the result of combining two inert chemicals under the conditions of extreme heat and an electrical catalyst. Perhaps you can tell us what the resulting process is called."
Simple. "Fusion."
One of the kids snickered. Another rolled his eyes. "Settle down," he told his class. "Yes, it would be fusion if we hadn't already advanced past the twenty first century."
"Jack!" Kindle hissed.
My face turned red. The teacher gave a wry smile. He was enjoying my embarrassment, I was sure of it.
"You'll have to pardon my young ward," said Christophe. "His education is based in experience, not in books." Score one for Christophe!
A kid in the class said, "Oooh he flamed you, Teach!" Another laughed. One girl made a face. She was clearly a fan of her teacher.
"Yes. Well, while he was playing around in space, we've managed to come out of the dark ages. It's called advanced compound fusion, Mr. Cosworth. Perhaps you should take a few lessons. I'm sure we could make room for you here."
I don't know what I did to offend the man. Christophe assured me it was just how he was determined to be. "He's one of those types who went in to teaching to make a difference and became jaded by the system. It's not you, Jacob."
It was me. No matter what Christophe says, it was me. He may have been the only teacher to say anything offensive to my face, but he wasn't alone in his thoughts. They resented me.
"Is it because I'm young?"
"Partly. Mostly because you're you. Mostly because you've done all they could just teach."
It's stupid. I can't help who I am or how I was raised.
Mr. Kindle apologized up and down. He assured me that Jack would face censure for his rudeness. I told him to forget it. I wasn't about to give him a legitimate reason to hate me.
We entered a large room. "This is our cafeteria." Again it was staffed by humans, though bots were wiping down the tables. "Again, a place where robotics are outlawed." Apparently they couldn't train or program bots to tell when food was "smelling off" without the great cost of biochemistry processors. "We can have them test for bacteria and decomposition, but the time and cost involved simply don't make that viable. Besides, I've got a bot at home that 'cooks', and I'd rather eat cafeteria food any day of the week!"
Christophe gave a chuckle. "Yes, a lack of taste buds certainly leads to an interesting meal."
"I have arranged for us to take a private lunch in my offices..."
"Why?" The food in the cafeteria smelled good and I suddenly remembered that I got up too late to eat breakfast.
"Well, I... I didn't think you'd want to eat with...here...and..."
Christophe held up a hand. "I'm certain the food here is as good as the education. Besides, it will be an experience for Jacob to eat with other students his own age. Perhaps he can get a feel for what they like and dislike about the school?" As he spoke, he smoothly guided Kindle to the start of a line. In seconds he had a tray in Kindle's hands and had Kindle approving wholeheartedly. I wished I could do what Christophe did with people. I wished I could assess and adapt, blend, be accepted. It truly is a rare talent.
"Oh! I hadn't thought of it like that! Of course Mr. Cosworth should get the full experience of life here for the students at Cosworth Tech. Excellent idea!"
Kids were lining up behind us. I hadn't heard them enter, but I felt their presence and turned around to greet them. I got everything from polite but distant nods to flat out gawking. I turned and followed Christophe's lead in getting my lunch. One of the ladies behind the food counter reminded me so much of Daniel back on the Condor that I stopped to talk to her. "And what are we having today?" It was the game I always played with Daniel, and it worked with her.
"Just a little chicken and potatoes." She gave me a smile. "You enjoy that now, Mr. Cosworth."
"It looks so fantastic that I'm sure I will. You have a good day!"
She beamed. "Why thank you! You have yourself a fine one as well." As I was walking down the row to the next person, I heard her whisper to her coworker. They both gave me smiles they meant, not just fake ones people put on for the boss.
Christophe paid for the food and then we stood looking out across the communal tables that were starting to fill up. "I shall sit and speak with Mr. Kindle about a few policy items I've observed. Why don't you head over there and sit with some of the students?"
I looked the group and sighed. First contact on their home world. Christophe gave me "that lo
ok" and I took a deep breath. There would be no getting out of it. I walked over and waited for an invitation to sit. They ignored me. I cleared my throat and asked if they minded if I had a seat.
They knew they had to let me sit down. I felt it in their looks to each other. They knew they could not say no, because of who I was. One looked at me for a minute before scooting over. "Fine," she said. It was as much of a welcome as I suppose I could have hoped for. I sat. And then we all just...sat.
"How rich are you?" the one-girl welcoming committee blurted out.
"Uh, I don't know. My accountants take care of that."
Someone scoffed. "You have accountants?"
"My dad's. I didn't have anything to do with it."
"Poor little rich boy," said a boy with a sneer. He had purple hair with blue tips and a shiny orb stuck in his ear.
"Cut it out, Scruff," said the girl. "He can't pick any more than you could."
The boy got mad. "Why are you defending him, Jas? Did he already buy you, too?"
The girl threw her fork to her tray. "Why you little..."
"I didn't mean to cause a fight between friends," I said quickly. "If my presence is offensive, I'll leave."
The girl named Jas scoffed. "Don't worry about it, Cosworth. Scruff's no friend of mine."
The boy looked very hurt for a split second before that changed to anger. I felt for him. He pushed back and stormed away from the table.
"He's always got an attitude. Don't pay attention to him," said another one of the kids.
"Why are you here?" Jas demanded in a snotty voice. Now that she accomplished her mission in making Scruff angry, she was turning it on me.
I thought of lying, but decided this group would see right through it. "Because my handlers in StarTech thought I should see what normal kids my age are like."
Jas snorted and a few other kids at the table laughed. It was better than I could have expected and I picked up a fork and tried the meal.
"I can't believe someone with all your loot's eating that slop," said Jas. She was giving a half smile, so I didn't think she was mad. I think she was just one of those people who project a hardness no matter what they're really thinking or feeling.
I took a bite. It was actually pretty good. It reminded me of Daniel's cooking. "It's not bad."
"Of course he likes it," said a boy at the table. "He grew up eating compost mash."
"Composite protein mash," I corrected.
"What's it taste like?"
"CPM? I don't know. Proteins. And mash." I laughed. "I guess I never thought of how to describe it."
Another girl made a face. "Sounds gross."
I shrugged. "It's what I knew."
Jas sniffed the food on her fork then shoved her tray away. "Bet you're glad to be getting real food now, huh?"
"That was real food. Just different." I took another scoop of what the woman said was potatoes. It had almost no flavor at all, just how I liked it.
"You really were in space, weren't you?"
I sighed. "No. I've managed to lie to billions of people for weeks now with a straight face. Honestly, I'm pathological. Someone stop me. Quick."
The boy laughed. Even Jas gave a half smile. "I guess you're pretty sick of hearing that."
I smiled, feeling like maybe I was getting the hang of things. They laughed at my joke. It was a start. "Just a little."
"You can't blame people for asking."
"I don't. But I have to admit that it gets old when they don't accept an answer the first time and repeat it over and over instead of moving on and asking something different."
"Like what kinds of aliens there are." It was a statement, not a question. I stared at Jas for a minute before answering.
"I've been asked that."
"But you've never answered."
I picked up my fork and started eating again.
"Why don't you answer that one? You said there are aliens."
"I think you should drop it, Jas," said one of the other girls.
Jas scoffed. "Why? He said he wants people to ask different questions. I'm asking a different question."
"He obviously doesn't want to talk about it."
"Why? What's the matter, Cosworth? What is it you're afraid of by answering?" She made a grunt. "I bet they're monsters and he's setting us all up to be harvested!"
It was so absurd to me that I started to laugh. "I can assure you that no other tribe we've met has any plans on 'harvesting' humanity."
"Fine. Then taking our planet for their own."
"Or using our resources," another kid added.
"Or escaping from their own disasters," said one more.
The thoughts tumbled from them at once. And then, they just waited. Hope in some eyes, fear in others. I wiped my mouth, trying to think of the best way to answer them. "Beyond this solar system is a galaxy. The galaxy is filled with stars, some large, some small, that feed the other millions of solar systems like this one. Beyond that galaxy is another galaxy, and another and another. Earth is not unique. Earth is not special. There is nothing here that anyone would travel billions of light years to take. Or eat. Or steal. Or control."
The silence in the cafeteria was deafening. They couldn't believe what I just said. "That's an awful thing to say," Jas said after long, uncomfortable moments.
Her contradictions made me laugh. I was the only one laughing, though. "You've got to be kidding me! I just told you that there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of from other tribes and why. I'm telling you to relax and enjoy contact, not fear it."
I felt Christophe's hand on my shoulder. "Are you almost through, Jacob? We've got a busy day ahead of us."
"Just a minute," I said, shaking his hand loose.
"Run away, space boy," Jas sneered.
"Why are you angry?" It made no sense to me. I offended them, Christophe assured me later. Well no kidding, but why? I just said the truth, and I said it because they were needlessly scared. Wasn't that the entire problem StarTech faced? The only way to ease fears was education. If people knew the facts, then they could see there was no need for worry.
Right?
"Go back to your other planets if they're so much better than Earth," Jas replied. "We didn't ask you to come back here anyway."
I looked around the table. Though some glared like Jas, most looked suddenly fascinated by their plates and put their heads down to study the diversion. One kid flicked me a quick smile before looking away. "So none of you really want to hear the truth, is that is? You want me to lie to you? Fine. This is the most amazing planet I have ever seen in my life. Please be racist and exclusionary so that the people of this obviously perfect rock never learn, expand, or grow." I stood up and grabbed my tray. "You know why no one would ever invade this place? Because they'd have to deal with all of your bull if they did!"
I pushed past Christophe and threw the tray into the bin with the other dirty trays. "Can we complete the tour now, Mr. Kindle?"
By the time we had returned to my estate, it had been decided that I needed a break from people my age. All the adults who handled me agreed. I think it wasn't so much the outburst as the spin the media put on it.
And in science news, Jacob Cosworth, billionaire heir and first human born off-world, proclaims that aliens will leave the Earth alone because of the perfection we have already obtained. During a visit to the Washington branch of his Cosworth Technological High School system, he told a crowd of rapt students that there would be no reason for further interplanetary expansion because there simply is no better out there. In a statement from StarTech CEO Reginald Luckson, Cosworth's words were contradicted.
"The statements you have run as news have been taken completely out of context. Mr. Cosworth was expounding on the need for humanity to accept and learn from intergalactic races and, in his anger at the common short sighted, self absorbed opinions of humanity, used sarcasm to hammer home his point. We stand behind Mr. Cosworth's statements and are deep
ly disappointed in your inability to accurately report the facts."
Since Mr. Cosworth has been unavailable for clarification, the station must leave it up to the viewers to decide which version they choose to believe.
Ralph shook his head. "I told them it was a mistake to take you there. Kids are little a-holes."
"I'm sorry," said Lynette. Again. She felt horrible for not being there with me.
"Don't be." I oddly felt good about it all. I got to say exactly what I thought. And in spite of Reginald's barely patient holo to me earlier on how to repair the damage, I decided not to feel bad about it.
"I told you to wear the tie," Jillian admonished for the umpteenth time. She was furious when she saw the press footage from the front of the school.
"A tie wouldn't have made one bit of difference," said Christophe, not even glancing up from his holo. "The entire place was set against him from the moment we walked in. I made a bad call going there."
"When the spotlight turns off the truth comes out." It was something Colson said to me after our second interview, after he goaded me to heated but truthful words once again. He probably loved my outburst at the school. It was something he'd definitely think was "icy".
Take away the distraction of the lights and cameras and questions, and I was just a kid. Put me in a school, and I was surrounded by other kids. There was no place to hide, no people to hide behind. I failed some test. I could see it in the adults' eyes. I could see it in Lynette's face. I failed.
As far as fitting in, kid to kid, it was clear that I had nothing in common with them, nothing at all. I toured the school the rest of the day. I heard the talking in the hall, the things they concentrated on. While a lot of it went over my head, I picked up enough to walk away jaded. Hair color. Parties. Telescreen stars and recording artists. That's what they cared about. Hollow, shallow, silly things.
"They're only kids, Jake," Lynette had said when she ran out of legitimate excuses for them.
They were of a different society than I was. I understand now what Lynette meant. I even agree. It wasn't their fault that to me, their long talks about hair and nails and jewelry and transports and who-said-what-about-who seemed shallow. In fact, I think I was really the one with the problem. They were a product of their culture. They could be shallow while young...Lynette was right. They were only kids! They had eighty years or better still ahead of them. They had the luxury of a long life in a safe environment. They had the time to worry about silly little things before they put it aside and had a long life of work and family and bills and all the pressures and responsibilities of being an adult. I had the problem, not them.
Just like them, though, I was also a product of my environment. I was raised in a place where clothes didn't matter, life support systems did. I was raised in a ship where people didn't care about jewelry because the extra weight of one gem took so much math and planning to account for that it just wasn't worth it to own pretty things. My most significant contact with a society was with one that was so short lived that if I was actually a member during my time there, then I would have been old enough to be considered for the elder council.
I didn't hate the kids at school. I was frustrated at not being able to adapt, to fit in. We were products of our own environments. I get that now. Then? I'll admit it took a lot of thought to get around to that peace. I will fully admit that I was in a deep teenage funk that night. I felt isolated and alone, and it was made worse by the looks from the adults. They made it clear that the failure was mine, and they never even had to say it out loud.
I wasn't sorry I said what I did. I wasn't even that sorry the news got it all wrong. I was sorry that once again, I let them down. And at the time, I didn't even know how. Plans were made to try and get me to be accepted through other means. More parties, but different ones. Afternoon teas with the rich instead of night time bashes with the famous. I was going to attend "grand openings", even though I had no clue what those were. If I couldn't fit in with the average kid, then they were going to try and force me to fit in with my wealthy "peers".
I felt defeated but determined. I hated feeling like a failure at every turn. At times, I truly felt like Reginald, Ralph, and Christophe thought I was intentionally sabotaging things. I wasn't, and even looking back with everything that I've learned since, I can still honestly say that I never, never intentionally chose to buck the system. Not at that point. At that point, I would have spent every credit in that huge and useless bank account to have someone give me the magic key to making myself accepted and liked.
I did what they said. I did every single thing they told me to. Well, except the stupid ties and bows. I still took them off any chance I got. I went to the boring luncheons. I attended "garden teas" that really took place in digital gardens so really should have been called "large screen display teas". I "schmoozed", as Ralph called it, to the best of my ability. No matter how hard I tried, I felt the people of Earth continue to elude my understanding. The harder I tried, the further outside I felt. The frustration built and built. And there wasn't a thing I could do about it, because the next day, I just had to get up and try again.