At noon, he staggered out with Vik at his side, his brain buzzing like he’d received an electric jolt. “Wow.” Tom spoke half to himself, trying to get his head around it. “I speak Japanese.”
“Sure you do.”
“What else do I speak?”
“Depends on what language we’ll get tested on Friday.”
“And what else can I do? Create a nuke? Build a starship? Do I know kung fu?”
Vik answered, “If you’re scheduled to kung fu fight in Applied Simulations later, you got it in your homework download.”
Tom understood it finally: he could do anything now. The entire world was his.
AN HOUR LATER in the mess hall, Tom carried his tray toward the conveyer belt by the door and toyed with a fantasy: dropping in on Rosewood Reformatory with his fluent Japanese and telling them all about some starship he’d built single-handedly and won the war with. He didn’t notice the large kid with a Genghis ax on his sleeve until the guy had elbowed past him. Tom stumbled to the side, caught off guard by the sudden explosion of muscular impulses from the processor in his head, trying to balance him. His drink slipped from his tray. He watched it launch on a collision course with the dark-haired girl in front of him....
But she whipped around like a striking snake and caught the glass before the dark liquid sloshed over the rim.
“Nice reflexes,” Tom said, impressed. He glanced up at her face—and caught his breath.
NAME: Heather Akron
RANK: USIF, Grade VI, Camelot Company, Machiavelli Division
CALL SIGN: Enigma
ORIGIN: Omaha, NE
ACHIEVEMENTS: Member of the Young Social Innovators, recipient of the RAIA Fearson Scholarship, Junior Miss Nebraska two years running
IP: 2053:db7:lj71::212:ll3:6e8
SECURITY STATUS: Top Secret LANDLOCK-6
Heather gazed back for a searching moment, then her yellow-brown eyes widened. “Oh, Tom, you’re here!”
She sounded so happy to see him that his stomach flipped. “Yeah, I’m here.”
“I barely recognized you without the …” She trailed off, eyes scanning his face. Then she said brightly, “I’ve been waiting for weeks for you to pop out of the surgery suite. I thought you’d changed your mind on us.”
Tom didn’t know what to say to that, staring into the gorgeous face of a girl who he’d thought would never give a guy like him the time of day.
Back when he wasn’t smart.
Back when his skin was messed up.
Back when he was homeless and had nothing going for him.
The thoughts fired in his brain all at once. A sense of having been reborn as a new person overcame him. He wondered at his own daring when he leaned closer, held her eyes, and said, “Sorry. I’d never keep you waiting.”
He was rewarded by Heather’s giggle. “Aw, you’re still cute, Tom.”
“Cute?” Tom tried to puzzle that one out. Was that flattering or unmanly?
A rich laugh broke in between them. A tall, handsome guy shoved his tray onto the conveyer belt, then casually propped his elbow on Heather’s shoulder. “I see the H-bomb has claimed another victim.”
Tom didn’t need the neural processor to tell him who this was. He’d know Elliot Ramirez anywhere. The text scrolled over his vision center nonetheless.
NAME: Elliot Ramirez
CALL SIGN: Ares
RANK: USIF, Grade VI, Camelot Company, Napoleon Division
ORIGIN: Los Angeles, CA
ACHIEVEMENTS: Recipient of the Taco Bell Teen Hero Award, first place World Junior Figure Skating Championship, founder of the Shoot for the Stars Inspiration Forum for Children, Teen People’s Young Heartthrob of the Year, winner of the Latin American Achievement Award
IP: 2053:db7:lj71::209:ll3:6e8
SECURITY STATUS: Top Secret LANDLOCK-6
Laughter tinged Elliot’s voice. “You’ve gotta live up to that wily reputation, don’t you, H? Toying with the affections of poor, innocent plebes.”
Heather shrugged her shoulder so Elliot’s arm slipped off. “I like poor, innocent plebes. And I’ll have you know, I helped General Marsh find Tom’s network address, and I helped run him through Marsh’s experimental screening scenario.”
“So what did you get for that?” Elliot teased. “Is the next slot for Camelot Company guaranteed to someone in Machiavelli Division?”
“Don’t listen to a word Elliot says, Tom,” Heather said sternly.
Elliot raised an eyebrow. “Actually, Raines, you’ll have to listen to what I say. You’re in my Applied Simulations group.”
“I am?” Tom said.
“Yes,” Elliot confirmed, his dark eyes flicking over some information he could see, scrolling through some manifest in his head. “Thomas Raines, my newbie.”
“Oh.” Heather pouted. “That’s too bad. I hoped I’d have you, Tom.”
Tom fervently wished she had him, too.
Elliot clapped his shoulder. “Hey, you lucked out.” He winked. “Trust me, the people back home will go nuts when you tell them I’m the one training you.”
Tom thought of Neil’s reaction if he ever found out his kid would be taking orders from Elliot Ramirez, of all people.
“Yeah,” Tom agreed. “My dad would definitely go nuts.”
CHAPTER SIX
VIK SAID APPLIED Simulations were groups of plebes battling simulated enemies together under the leadership of members of Camelot Company. Vik really liked his group because it was led by Heather, who was apparently very hands-on, the thought of which made Tom wild with envy. Yuri, on the other hand, didn’t care for his. He was in a group led by a Combatant named Karl Marsters, who always chose the goriest, bloodiest simulations available for his plebes. Apparently, Karl especially loved assuming the role of his division’s namesake, Genghis Khan, and ordering his plebes to pile up the heads of villagers.
Tom and Beamer entered a thirteenth floor training room. It resembled the one Marsh and Olivia had showed him on his tour: vast and dim, with a series of cots in a circle, EKG monitors at the ends.
“Do we need to put on electrodes or something?” Tom asked Beamer, pointing to the EKGs.
“No. There’s a neural wire under the cot, and it goes in your brain stem access port.”
Tom’s hand flew back to his neck, to the round port he’d felt earlier.
“It’s how you hook into the simulations and get downloads, too,” Beamer added. “Just stick the wire in, and the neural processor will do the rest.”
They settled on empty beds. Tom spotted Wyatt Enslow already perched on one of them, her long legs curled up in front of her.
Tom said, “Hey.”
She replied, “Shh.”
Nice to see you, too, Tom thought.
Plebes continued to shuffle in, and then Elliot Ramirez came and slid onto the edge of the last empty cot. The EKG monitor bathed his black hair in a faint green glow. “Good to see you’re all on time.” He beamed at Tom. “Now, let’s give a warm welcome to our newest member.”
Awkward clapping followed. Tom felt for a strange moment like he’d accidentally wandered into a support group.
“You see, Tom,” Elliot went on, “I don’t like to throw my plebes into a simulation like a lot of other instructors do. It’s important we all have a chance to chat first, get out some of our emotions, decompress from the tensions of the day. I like to get my group thinking about self-empowering topics. Today, we’re going to discuss something very important. And that thing is perhaps the most important concept of all: self-actualization.”