Psion Alpha (18 page)

“Sorry,”
he said. “I come from a home where tattoos are
taboos
. One time I told
my dad I wanted to get a jet on my arm. He said if I did I should move out.”

“Yikes.
Strict much?”

Byron
shrugged. “But why did you get so much done? Both arms, right?”

Emerald
got out of her chair in a deliberate manner, her eyes locked on Byron’s. She
turned around so her back was to him. He heard a zip and realized she was
removing her uniform.

“Uh
… Emerald? What—”

She
slid the top half of her uniform up and over her head, exposing her bare back.
Byron couldn’t believe what he saw. The tattoos covered not only her arms but
her entire back. It ended right at her waistline. He got up and walked closer
to her. The dance of lines and colors became clearer the closer he moved to her
skin. He saw flowers, plants, trees. Above it, where her neck met her back and
across her shoulders, a clear blue sky with three birds flying serenely over a
garden scene and a distant rooftop. Everything was so lovely, so peaceful,
except in the middle. There, in the center of the garden, knelt a girl who
looked a lot like Emerald, only much heavier. She wore a gray sweat suit and a
matching cloth headband. Her skin was ashen and her eyes, almost cartoonishly
large, were filled with anguish or horror … or both. She grabbed at her face
with warped fingers, stretching her skin almost to the tearing point. Tattoos matching
Emerald’s encircled the tattoo-girl’s arms. The effect startled Byron, repulsed
him.

“Touch
it if you want,” she said.

Byron
took a step away. “Looking is fine.”

“I
don’t want you to be weirded out by it anymore,” she said over her shoulder.

“It—I—no—why
did you do it?”

Emerald
put her uniform back on and adjusted it back into place. She didn’t answer him
until she sat back down. “Because it hurt.”

“You
got the tattoos because they hurt?”

“Everything
in my life already hurt, so I wanted something beautiful to show for all the
pain.”

He
thought about her words before asking his next question. “And all the
piercings? Same thing?”

She
touched her nose and face as if feeling for the holes. “Can you still tell?”

“Not
really. Not as easily as when I first saw you.”

Emerald
grinned as her hand moved from her nose to her ears. Byron again noted how much
of a difference it made on her appearance when she smiled. He remembered when
Trapper had called her
gorgeous
. “I’ve been using this cream my mom sent
to heal the areas. I guess it’s working.”

The
door clicked again, and Trapper re-entered the room with an ice pack on his
face. “Hey,” he mumbled.

Emerald
glanced at Byron, then at Trapper. “I’m pretty tired. I think I’ll turn in for
the night. Thanks for studying with me.” Byron noticed that her face was
slightly red. As she left the room, she avoided his gaze. “See you two.”

“G’night,”
Trapper and Byron both said.

Once
the door closed, Trapper turned to Byron. “Did you say something to her?”

“No.
Why?”

“Did
she say something to you about me?”

“No.
What is with all the questions?”

Trapper
watched Emerald through the small window in the door. He stood in place for a
long time wearing a disappointed expression. “Tuesday night I asked her to be
my girlfriend. It was after you guys left the study room. I don’t know what
came over me, but I just … I did it.”

Byron
perked up at this news. “And what did she say?”

Trapper
finally turned away from the window. “She said I’m not her type. So I asked her
what is her type. She wouldn’t say anything, but she looked at me like it
wasn’t my business.” He slumped into his chair and buried his face in his arms.
“I don’t know, Byron. It sucks. Sometimes I get the feeling that she likes
you
.”

“Me?”
Byron fought back a loud chuckle. “What do you mean?”

“You
tutor her. You guys have inside jokes. She looks at you differently than me.” Trapper
packed up some of the papers, then stopped. “Do you—are you thinking about making
a move on her?”

“Making—what?
You mean like asking her out? Heck no.”

Trapper
didn’t believe Byron. “I don’t want you to. I think she’ll come around after a
while. Once I win the golden skull in combat, she’ll see. She’ll know I’m her
type.”

Byron
had seen Trapper in combat class. He highly doubted Trapper would ever wear the
golden skull on his uniform, but he didn’t say this.

“I
mean it. Don’t go for her, Byron.”

Trapper’s
seriousness made Byron smile. He turned to the marker screen and traced his
finger along its smooth surface, creating words. When he was finished writing,
he underlined the third word in the sentence:

I
AM
NOT
INTERESTED IN HER.

“Not
at all, Trap. So stop worrying.”

“Sorry,
man.” The tone of regret was unmistakable. “You’re right. Sorry. I always
thought.… Never mind. You always believed me when I said I wasn’t gay. I should
believe you, too.”

Byron
erased the sentence he’d just written, saved their notes on the marker screen, and
helped Trapper clean up the rest of the papers and tablets. “You always thought
what?”

“I
came here because I wanted to prove something. Theater was my thing. Acting.
I’m good at it, but I got so tired of people thinking that I wanted to be an
actor because of my looks and my lisp and my—my mannerisms. So I joined the
Elite. It shocked everyone when I did. My dad was proud of me. My mom, too. I
figured if anything, this place would make me more—I know it sounds
stupid—manly.

“Plus,
I’ve always wanted to really beat the crap out of someone,” Trapper’s voice
took on a quality unmistakably similar to Omar’s. “You know? Someone evil.
Throw a solid punch, stun them, and then tear into them with my fists and
knees. Feel their bones break beneath my blows, see their skin split in two.
And finally, once they’re really terrified, I’ll finish it.”

Byron
stared at Trapper as he described all this. The light in his eyes, the feral
look on his face, all of it was different. Even Trapper’s lisp disappeared as
he spoke in this new voice. When Trapper saw Byron’s face, he laughed.

“Kidding!”
he slapped his knee. “I told you I’m a good actor.”

Byron
laughed with him. “You had me. No lie. That was totally Omar.”

“I’ve
been working on that impression for four months.”

“I
figured. So are you saying you never really wanted to come here?”

Trapper
didn’t answer as they turned off the lights and left the study room. “No,” he
finally said with a sigh. “I don’t know. It’s not like I hate it here. Don’t
get me wrong. When I was sixteen, I tried out for this part in a community
play. My audition was first-class.
Death of a Salesman
, you heard of it?
Classic play. I wanted the part of Happy. They said I wasn’t masculine enough.
I tried out for
Brighton Beach Memoirs
. Same thing. At that point, I
figured any career I wanted onstage or in front of a camera was going to be
playing the funny gay friend unless I learned how to man up or whatever. That’s
why I’m here.”

“Trap,
you are not that effeminate. A lisp, yes. One or two mannerisms, maybe, but is
two years of hell followed by two years of service in the Elite Corps worth it
for a part in a movie? To me it is insanity.”

“It
is.”

“Well,
you are really starting to worry me. You hate it here, and the second year is
supposed to be even worse. And you are here to improve your acting skills.”

“No,
no.” Trapper forced a snicker, but Byron hadn’t been joking, and they both knew
it. “I mean, sure, that’s part of it, but not the main reason. Service in the
Elite brings huge benefits. That’s why getting in is so competitive.”

“How
competitive is it?” Byron asked, but he immediately regretted sounding so
naïve. “I mean, you know, since they offered me a spot, I never had to go
through all that.”

Trapper
wasn’t fooled by Byron’s attempted cover up. “Well, for those of us who got in
the normal way, and aren’t girls like Emerald, it’s extremely competitive. They
want a diverse population of Elite. That’s why I checked the box for a
homosexual orientation on my application—to increase my chances.”

“You
really did that?”

Trapper
nodded glumly as they climbed the steps to their dormitory. “I’m not proud of
lying, but acceptance was something I really wanted. My family isn’t rich,
Byron. My choices of colleges are limited, and I want to go to a prestigious
school for performing arts. That means I need dinero to pay for it. Being an
honorably discharged Elite looks awesome on a résumé.”

“I
hope so,” Byron said. “You deserve it.”

Two
days later, Team Oddball and the rest of the first year Elites took their
psychology exam. Byron knew he’d done well. There wasn’t a single answer he
hadn’t recognized. When the scores appeared on the screen, he followed his
tradition of starting at the bottom and working his way up until he found his
score. It didn’t surprise him that his score of ninety-six left him right
behind Diego’s ninety-eight. Byron tied with Emerald and a few others for the
second highest mark. Perhaps most surprising was that Xian had barely outscored
Otto and Trapper by a margin of one correct answer.

“Ninety-four
percent!” Xian exclaimed. “Woohoo! Look out, bro!” He rubbed Trapper and Otto’s
hair, teasing them. “I’m climbing the academic ladder.”

“We’re
all terrified,” Emerald said dryly.

Xian
kissed her on the cheek, then quickly ducked as she tried to smack his face.

Trapper
put a hand on Xian’s shoulder and gave him a stern, “Don’t do that.”

Xian
still grinned. Trapper shook his head in disappointment as he fixed his hair.
Otto continued to stare sullenly at the screen. Byron watched both friends with
a twinge of guilt. While Trapper still clung to his hopes of staying in the
running for the academic golden skull, a ninety-three percent did not help his
cause. Byron put a hand on his roommate’s shoulder.

“Still
plenty of time. Keep at it.”

“Just
don’t let me score higher than you again!” Xian teased.

Emerald
glared at Xian until he stopped snickering. As they walked out of the testing
center, Byron saw Omar and Diego up ahead with their group of friends.

“Hey
Omar, I hope you’re gonna get that golden skull for combat,” Xian called out,
“because you’re too dumb to get one in anything else. I’m going to start
calling you Mister 70.”

“Shut
up, Xian,” Byron hissed.

Xian
chuckled and clapped his hands. “I’m messing around.”

Omar
fixed his black eyes on Xian. “You wanna throw down right here?”

Xian
laughed again. “Harmless jokes, bro. Forget about it!”

“It’s
not harmless when you get harmed.” Omar jerked his arms back like he was going
to punch Xian.

Xian
jumped back and threw his hands up. “My bad, bro. My bad.”

Omar
started to turn around, then faced Xian again and drove his fist into Xian’s
stomach. Xian doubled over and hit the ground.

“Yeah,
your bad, bro.” He kicked Xian’s foot aside as he and his crew walked away.

Xian
groaned on the ground, clutching his stomach.

“You
okay?” Otto asked.

Xian
opened one eye. “Is he gone?” When he saw that Omar was nowhere in sight, he
hopped up. Then he pulled up his shirt and showed Emerald his stomach. “Abs of
steel, bra. Want to feel these? Touch a little piece of heaven?”

“You’re
something else,” Emerald responded.

Byron
laughed uneasily to lighten the moment, but couldn’t help but notice the way
Xian still limped slightly as he stepped.

“What
is Xian’s deal?” Byron whispered to Otto. “Is it me or is he extra crazy
today?”

Otto
dropped his voice, too, but not so low that Byron couldn’t hear the underlying
fury in his tone. “He was worried about failing the exam, so he took one of
those grade buster pills. Stayed up all night riveted to my notes. He was
practically a zombie, reading and not even blinking. I think they’re wearing
off now. He’s getting loopy.”

Trapper
overheard them. “That’s cheating, man. He cheated!”

Otto
shrugged. “Dude, look around. I guarantee you other people are doing it, too. Probably
a lot more than you think. Xian can’t fail another psych test or he’s out.”

“It’s
still cheating.”

Xian
giggled again and skipped down the hallway ahead of the group. Next they had Crisis
Management, where Xian slept through the entire lecture about snake bites and
antidotes. That evening, Trapper invited everyone to go to the dojo for a
sparring session. “I feel like we’ve been so focused on academics, we’re
letting our combat go. Anyone want to join? Emerald?”