Tom had puzzled over their absence earlier at Morning Meal Formation. Then everyone received a message in their processors to apprise them that the Russo-Chinese forces had launched a surprise attack on the Indo-American shipyards near Neptune. If they destroyed them, it would be a massive setback to Indo-America. It took so long to get machinery to the outer solar system, much less to establish shipyards there, and that arsenal formed part of the access corridor to the mineral-rich Kuiper Belt. The CamCos had all been summoned to the Helix, the area between the ninth and tenth floors with neural interfaces that directly controlled ships in space. As the minutes dragged by in Programming, Tom grew more and more aware there was some awesome battle going on in space, and he had no way of knowing who was winning.
If Blackburn had heard any news of the latest battle, he showed no sign of it. He was too busy studying the coding of Wyatt’s program and firing questions at Karl’s friends, the Genghises who had been turned into chickens.
“Where was the programmer standing? … Did you hear a voice? … What did you do when you first recovered?”
The muscular blond Genghis, Lyla Martin, finally grew tired of it. “I’m telling you, sir, we don’t know who did it. I can’t help you.”
Blackburn’s lips pulled into a flat smile. “Oh, you can help me, Ms. Martin. If you don’t have a name for me, I’ll think of something else for you to help me with today.”
Everyone knew what that meant: it meant he’d be selecting her for his next demonstration.
Lyla grew desperate. “Ask Tom Raines!”
Oh no. Tom slouched down in his seat.
“He was there. He saw it all. He probably knows!”
Blackburn’s gaze crawled to Tom’s. “Is that so, Mr. Raines?”
“No, I didn’t see anything,” Tom said quickly.
“But you were there.”
“I wasn’t …” Tom looked at Lyla, and the other Genghises who’d been chickened. They’d all argue against him. He sighed. “I was there, yes.”
“And you have no name for me, I presume.”
“No, sir,” Tom said, knowing Blackburn wasn’t going to let him get away with this, especially not with everyone watching.
“Fine, Raines. You can be my volunteer today. Get up here.”
Tom gave Vik and Beamer a mock salute, then rose to his feet and plodded down the aisle. His gaze darted to the device Blackburn had brought into class. The metallic instrument that looked like an upside-down claw. He hoped this wasn’t going to be too awful.
“Today,” Blackburn announced to the class, “we’re discussing Klondike. I am not referring to an ice-cream bar. Like Zorten II, Klondike is a neural processor–specific computer language. It’s used in two areas: it helps a neural processor communicate with technologies in the intrasolar arsenal, and it tweaks the brain in certain ways Zorten II can’t, specifically when it comes to indexed memories.”
Tom mounted the stage. Blackburn gestured him over, then jabbed his index finger toward the screen over the stage.
“Focus on that, Raines.”
Tom heard faint sniggers as he neared the podium. People still remembered him falling in love with it. His cheeks burned and he tried to focus on the screen, but it was hard. Blackburn was preparing the clawlike device, positioning it right over his head. With a flick of a button, Blackburn sent thin beams of blue light from the claw tips into Tom’s temples. He flinched reflexively, but he felt nothing other than a tingling against his skin.
“This won’t be painful,” Blackburn assured him, typing at his forearm keyboard. “Just keep staring at the screen.”
Tom focused on the wriggling line on the screen. It was wavering. It reminded him of a snake or a spider or something. Apprehension bloomed through him, hearing Blackburn typing, typing away on his forearm keyboard, but Tom kept his eyes fixed on the line. A memory drifted into his head—that weekend Neil spent in the hospital and Tom had to stay at his buddy Eddie’s house. He opened a closet and found a bunch of scorpions. Eddie screamed, but Tom laughed and stamped on them and—
“There you are,” Blackburn said triumphantly.
Tom jumped, startled from the memory.
Blackburn twirled his finger, telling him to face the class again. “This contraption is called a census device. For the majority of the people in this room who can’t ever hope to understand how to use something like this, it’s a large, shiny object to admire. For the few of you who might one day master Zorten II and Klondike, it’s a potent psychological weapon. Your neural processor indexes all your memories, new and old. This device accesses those memories. And once you can access memories, there are worlds of applications. I’m going to show you one right now.”
More typing as he spoke.
Tom’s eyes remained fixed on the waving line that suddenly looked like a scorpion, and his memory drifted back to him of the time when he opened that closet and the scorpions came scuttling out. They’d climbed up into his jeans and stung his skin along his legs. He shrieked and shrieked in pain and ended up in the emergency room, and he remembered the smell of antiseptic in the hospital, and the pain, and the venom that had burned like fire all over his calves....
Blackburn’s voice yanked Tom from the memory. “Now, hold out your hand, Raines.”
Tom eyed him. “Why?”
“Do it.”
Tom raised his left hand.
“Thatta boy. Now palm down.”
Tom turned his palm down, and Blackburn placed something on his skin.
He felt it before he saw it. Felt the tiny, pointed little legs, the exoskeleton. He was aware of the blood draining from his cheeks, the sickness churning up in him, the coldness seeping into his shaking limbs. His heart pounded faster and faster in his ears and he didn’t feel he was breathing, he was suffocating. His vision focused with horrified clarity upon the scorpion nestled on top of his hand.
“Don’t move.” Blackburn settled back to watch his face.
“Wh—what—”
“Stand very still or it might sting you.”
Tom gasped for breath, cold sweat pricking over his skin. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t. It would sting him like that time, that time they all scuttled out of that closet, and he remembered shrieking, and even though he’d been a little kid back then, he felt the panic clawing up inside him again. His vision tunneled, his head spun. He couldn’t take this. He was going to scream. This was so much worse than the virus that made him fear the podium. It was standing there right on his hand! He was going to dissolve right here in front of everyone—faint or something—and he’d get laughed at, laughed at.
“Why don’t you tell the class how you feel, Raines?” Blackburn suggested. “Be honest.”
Tom glared at Blackburn, fury seething through him. He knew what Blackburn wanted. Well, he wasn’t going to look like a weak, pathetic person in front of all his friends. He wasn’t. He’d rather gouge out his own eyes.
So he seized the scorpion in his right hand, squeezed the body as hard as he could in his fist, then raised it to his mouth and ripped the head off with his teeth. The bitter taste of triumph flooded his mouth. He spat out the head, and realized with a strange sense of shock he hadn’t even been stung.