Veneer

by Daniel Verastiqui

  “Never mind,” she said, dropping her palette onto the desk.

  “What's the matter?”

  “I need an ID card to get into the server.” When Ilya didn't flash recognition, she added, “Only teachers have them.”

  Ilya nodded and looked away. Tiny lines on her forehead danced, until finally she whispered, “Do subs have cards?”

  “Probably...” Rosalia followed Ilya’s gaze to the front of the room. There, in the corner of the sub’s desk, was an ID card on a lanyard. “But how?”

  “Don’t worry,” said Ilya, reaching for her blouse. She dragged her finger down the seam and popped three of the buttons.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Come on, bring your palette.” Ilya slid off her chair and started towards the front of the room.

  Rosalia hesitated, but the smile on Ilya’s face was too inviting. She stood and followed, clasping her palette to her chest. When they reached the sub’s desk, she circled around to the left while Ilya stood dead center and leaned over at the waist.

  “Can you help us with this problem?” asked Ilya, sliding her palette across the desk.

  From her vantage point, Rosalia could see Ilya’s breasts spilling out of her shirt, though it was clear the bra was doing most of the work. The sub barely glanced at the math problem before his gaze fell on the free show in front of him. He stammered out a useless explanation, pausing every time his eyes got lost in Ilya’s naturally occurring parabolas.

  Rosalia took the opportunity to place her palette on its side on the desk, shielding the ID card from the sub’s view. While Ilya flirted, she concentrated on moving the plastic strip to the reader on the front of her palette. With one quick motion, she scanned the card. After a moment, the sub’s picture appeared, followed by an Access Granted message. Setting the card back on the desk, Rosalia cradled her palette in her arms and cleared her throat.

  “Oh,” said Ilya, feigning an epiphany, “we were supposed to take the derivative here, right?” The sub looked up at her, annoyed to have his attention diverted.

  Rosalia thanked the sub for his help and Ilya took the opportunity to straighten up. Together, they hurried back to their desks.

  “Not bad,” said Rosalia. “You’re kind of a slut when you want to be, huh?”

  “When you’ve got it,” she replied, sticking her chest out a little.

  With the faculty menu glowing on her palette, Rosalia attacked the system in earnest. All it took was a little thought about the personal pastimes of Principal Ficcone to break in. Once in the database, she reconciled her shop and overwrote every schedule. Even though a knot formed in her stomach, she couldn’t help but feel pleased with herself.

  “It’s child porn, you know that, right?”

  Rosalia looked at Ilya, confused.

  “Russo and Jalay are still minors,” she explained.

  After considering that for a moment, Rosalia replied, “Well, that’s bad news for a certain substitute teacher, isn’t it?” She shook her head. “They really should do background checks on these people.”

  “Don’t you think that’s kinda harsh?”

  With forced solemnity, she replied, “In every war, there are casualties. Even the noblest of men must be sacrificed for the good of the whole.”

  “I guess.”

  “And in this case, he was leering at you. A man his age ogling a girl like you... It’s unseemly.”

  “So you’re saying he deserves whatever he gets?”

  “Everyone deserves something.”

  Ilya snorted. “Deep,” she observed.

  Rosalia nodded. The clock in the corner of her palette was still ticking, inching closer to the top of the hour. Soon, the bell would ring and students would pour into the hallways. Some of them would end up at their lockers only to find Rosalia’s creation staring back at them. Then the laughter would start, growing from a mild chuckle to a thunderous roar. Heads would turn, seek out Russo and Jalay as they walked the halls with undeserved confidence. The pointing. The laughing.

  The crumbling of Russo’s tough veneer would be magnificent.

  “Thanks for your help,” said Rosalia, without looking up.

  “It was fun,” Ilya admitted, her voice pensive. She made a noise like she wanted to say something else, but decided against it. Then, giggling, “He’s staring at me.”

  “No.” Rosalia put her hand to her face to hide her smile. “He’s staring at both of us.”

  Ilya spoke in a Russian accent, “Dirty old man.”

  “Da,” agreed Rosalia.

  7 - Deron

  “Things going the way they are and the world moving the way it does, it’s any wonder we’re stuck here trying to understand the big picture when in fact, there is no picture at all, just a veneer, a model of the world the way they want us to see it. Except there is no they, only us; only we have the power to change the world and while the life-size models on my walls are aesthetically appealing, they don’t really make my bedroom a better place. It’s just polish for a reality we can never truly escape.”

  Deron nodded, pretended to listen. It was the only way to respond when Sebo started babbling in his rapid legato. Only after he had put down the final period was the listener able to extract any meaning from the long string of syllables. He owed his smooth delivery and intimidating verbosity to Dahlstrom Academy, which he attended until the middle of seventh grade when, as he put it, the banality of systematic study became too overwhelming. Most of the time, he spoke like a normal person, but when he wasn’t concentrating, he slipped back into the lofty prose as if it were the rule instead of the exception.

  “This brings up several good questions,” continued Sebo, his tone more suitable for a large crowd than an audience of one. “First, how can we ever trust what our eyes are telling us? They’re just biological entities after all, no more equipped to understand the world than a turnip.”

  At that, Sebo’s eyes began to cycle through the primary colors. It was something he had learned to do when he was younger, practicing repeatedly until it was second nature. Deron found it entertaining, especially when they grew stale, usually when Sebo got lost in simultaneous speech and thought.

  “Of course, there’re some exceptions. Pornographic images, for one, when strewn across all the lockers at once are artificial, but they elicit very real emotional reactions.”

  “You saw that, huh?”

  Sebo pulled out his palette and reconciled the now famous shop with a simple touch of his finger. He tilted it towards Deron. “Impressive work,” he said, pointing to the crisscrossing of arms between Russo and Jalay. “You can’t even see the shop marks.” His face grew serious, darkened just a little around the eyes, which had turned an impassive brown. “Why do I get the feeling you didn’t do this?”

  “You don’t know that.” Deron looked away, pretended to be interested in a pair of girls walking towards the far end of the plaza near the street. They were underdressed for the weather, at least as far as short skirts and wind gusts were concerned. When he looked back, Sebo was still staring him down.

  “Well, first, you don’t have the talent, we both know that. Second, even if you could, you wouldn’t.”

  “You saying my testicles are of insufficient size?” asked Deron, mimicking his friend’s speech. He leaned back slightly and turned his head to the sky. The immense clouds reached high like plumes of smoke.

  “Something like that.” Sebo pointed to the image. “Observe the detail around the penile area.”

  Deron squirmed and tried to resist looking. When Sebo pushed the palette towards his face, he put up a defensive hand.

  “Look how uncomfortable you get just looking at it. No one as homophobic as you would be able to craft the male sex organ so lovingly. What we have here is an artist who is not afraid to visualize the wang.” He paused, mulled something over as if selecting from the cafeteria menu. “A real wang-thinker.”

  “So a—” started Deron.

  �
�Yes! A girl!” Sebo beamed triumphantly. “I figured it out. The artist must be female.” He lapsed into a trance for a few seconds, during which his eyes continued to cycle, once taking on a bright pink that made Deron chuckle.

  “There’s nothing homophobic about being repulsed by the sight of another man’s...” Deron waved his hand around uncertainly.

  “So you would characterize your condition not as anti-gay but more anti-wang?”

  “Yeah.”

  Sebo huffed. “This from the guy that consistently sucks balls in Destined 4 Death.” Something flashed across his veneer, a changing of gears so sudden that Deron didn’t even have time to respond. “Did you get that trailer I sent you? They’re going to be demoing the new map packs in Paramel this weekend.”

  “No,” said Deron, reaching down for his backpack. He pulled his palette into his lap and thumbed the corner. A second later, his portal filled the screen. Multimedia clips played silently in the lower left; one of them showed the Destined 4 Death Marauder Pack. He selected it and made it fill the screen.

  He was only thirty seconds in before the instant messages started popping up, as if the entire school had been waiting for him to sign on so they could congratulate him. Some were from people he knew, other kids that shared his classes, but a lot were from relative strangers, normal students who were just happy to see someone put Russo in his place.

  “Unwarranted acclamation is what ruined the first half of the twenty-first century. History shows that people who accept credit while fully aware of their lack of merit eventually get found out and castrated.”

  Deron shot him a glance.

  “So you are listening.”

  “Yeah,” said Deron, clearing away the messages. “I’m starting to think Rosalia had something to do with this.”

  “Agreed. Who else besides her would keep a catalogue of Russo’s work? Shop or no shop, they’re still naked pictures of you.”

  “Either way, she’s doing exactly what Russo wanted.” He sighed and a picture of Rosalia appeared in the corner of his palette. She was smiling at him, her eyes and lips a bright and fiery red. “I thought if I just ignored him long enough, he would stop. I guess I just made it worse.”

  Sebo clucked his tongue. “Post hoc ergo propter hoc.”

  “Yeah, helicopter carrot rock to you too.”

  “It means you can’t attribute your actions to his response just because they followed.”

  “So,” said Deron, scratching his cheek, “he’s a dick regardless?”

  Sebo nodded approvingly. “And we’ve already established your aversion to dick.”

  “Now you understand.”

  “Hold on,” said Sebo, putting his hand up. “Let’s not get all slap-happy just because you admit your homophobia. We’re missing the real issue here and that’s that Rosa has engaged the enemy.” He mimed taking the handles of a truck-mounted machine gun. “This means retaliation on Russo’s part and nobody knows the extent of his dickishness. At the minimum, I see backlash towards Rosa. Worst case? Maybe violence.”

  “Since when do you care about her?”

  “Make no mistake. Every moment you spend hypnotized by Rosa’s tits is time we could be spending taking down the Death Monkeys in D4D. That’s important to me. War is progress and it’s the kind of release I need after suffering the indignity of public education every day.”

  “That was your choice,” Deron pointed out.

  “I have tried finding other players,” he continued, ignoring the interruption, “but no one even approaches your skill level. You’re a killer at heart, no matter what your veneer says.”

  “Lady-killer maybe,” said Deron, chuckling.

  “However, as your best friend I understand that over the years I will become a second thought to any girl with a low-cut shirt and a tight ass.” He put his hand on his chest and sighed. “I’ve accepted that. So to keep myself in good spirits, I simply remember that you have a habit of reconciling your girlfriends in semi to fully nude states and that when you ingest a sufficient amount of illegal drugs, you tend to reproduce them subconsciously.”

  Deron reconciled a blushing effect. “Whatever.”

  Sebo’s sudden laughter made the couple sitting across from them look up. “It was only a month ago,” he said, reconciling a memory onto his palette. “I can’t believe Rosa never told you.”

  “Told me what?”

  “We were hanging out in your room,” he began, the scene appearing under his hand. It showed Deron’s bedroom, fuzzy but recognizable. The lights were out and the three of them were huddled around a low flame in the center of the room. An open window provided a breeze that made the light flicker. “Your mom was at some show, so we were smoking out.”

  “Oh yeah,” said Deron, feigning recall. “I remember that night...”

  “No you don’t. You crashed out early because you’re a woman and can’t handle your smoke. So Rosa and I are just sitting there making fun of you and then we notice the floor is changing colors, but we can’t make out what it is. She starts laughing her ass off and I drag you to the wall and put your hand on it.”

  Deron closed his eyes and muttered, “Crap.”

  “Crap is right. Rosa and I are about to lose it, but then you open your eyes and start staring at her like she’s your favorite stuffed animal.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Sebo waved the question away. “So I thought there was gonna be a show because you looked like you wanted to do her right then and there.”

  “And?”

  “You pussied out, of course. All you did was draw naked pictures of her on the wall.”

  “So what? I reconciled the wall. Anyone can—”

  “That’s the thing with you. You’re the only one I know who does it involuntarily. You know why I remember that night so well? Because after you stared at Rosa you turned the whole room into a shrine to her. And it was fast too.” Sebo pinched at an imaginary wall in front of them. “Boom, picture here, boom, tits there. And perfect detail too, way beyond your skill level. Of course, when Rosa saw what you were doing, she went to the wall and started reconciling something else. You guys fought it out for a long time.”

  “Why didn’t she just move my hand away?”

  Sebo’s smile deflated. “I don’t know. Maybe that’s her competitive nature. She wanted to see if she could out-reconcile you.”

  “She can,” admitted Deron. “No contest.”

  “Yeah, when you’re trying, but when you’re messed up, you become something else. I think you’ve got a mental block of some kind. I mean, I already know you’re a killer, but now I think you might actually be an artist too. It’s just your brain keeps getting in the way of that.”

  “It does what it wants to do.”

  “Yeah,” replied Sebo, distracted.

  Deron followed Sebo’s gaze and saw that Principal Ficcone had popped his head out of the cafeteria door and was surveying the students. When he spotted Deron, he started walking towards them.

  They both wiped their palettes clean out of habit.

  “Mr. Bishop,” said the principal, “I would like a word with you.”

  “Sure,” replied Deron, fully aware that his agreement wasn’t required. He stood and slung his backpack over his shoulder.

  “Watch that trailer later,” said Sebo. “I want to go tomorrow.”

  “I’ll go if I’m not grounded,” he replied, looking to the principal.

  “That’s entirely up to your mother, Mr. Bishop.”

  Deron fell into step behind Principal Ficcone, unsure of what trouble awaited him.

  8 - Russo

  Ficcone’s office smelled like day-old deodorant mixed with burnt coffee. It tried its best to appear like the room of an important man, but Russo knew that every veneer in sight was just trying to mask the truth. The Berber carpet, the reconciled bookshelves, and the accents of purple and silver after the school’s colors couldn’t hide the room’s true purpose. Students sat
in one of two chairs in front of a large desk, behind which the principal would sit and hand out sentences like a judge.

  Like a court room, thought Russo.

  Instead of the city’s seal hanging behind the desk, there were floor to ceiling windows that looked out over the plaza in front of the school. Instead of a jury box, there was a fish tank with a solitary Beta in it, swimming back and forth for no reason, stuck in a prison within a prison. Rubbing at his nose, Russo looked over the fake diplomas and certificates on the wall—fake in the sense that there wasn’t really a frame or paper, just some good shadow reconciliation to make it look three-dimensional. No matter what the veneers on the wall said, nothing gave Ficcone the right to judge, even though that seemed to be his primary function.

  Russo slouched in his chair and tried to take his mind off the impending trial. Unlike the real thing, he wouldn’t get to hire a lawyer or be able to present any evidence. When the principal walked through that door, he would simply hand down his sentence, having decided the verdict long ago.

  Exhibit A: Escorted to school by uniforms.

  If Ficcone wanted to give him shit about being late to school, then he had taken his sweet time coming up with a punishment.

  Exhibit B: The shop of Deron and his dog.

  Groaning, Russo put his hands to his face and tried to press away the indignation. The sons of bitches were really going to try to pin that on him? It didn’t even make sense for Russo to post something like that, not after the constant threats. Ficcone had to be the dumbest motherfucker ever. He probably thought he was doing a good thing by punishing Russo, thought he was helping a troubled kid get back on the right track.

  Un-fucking-likely.

  The door behind Russo opened, and Ficcone walked in with that waste of space Deron trailing behind him. Though his face was impassive, Russo could see the subtle alarm appear in Deron’s eyes when he saw who else was in the office.