Insignia

by S. J. Kincaid

“And the sky is blue, and the sun rises in the east. I’ll need much more than the blatantly obvious.”

  Tom stopped twirling the virtual pencil and tried to concentrate. “Modern wars aren’t fought by people. I mean, they’re kind of fought by people, because people on Earth control mechanized drones remotely, but the machines do the actual fighting. If our machines don’t get demolished by Russo-Chinese machines, our country wins the battle.”

  “And who is involved in the current conflict, Tom?”

  “The whole world. That’s why it’s called World War Three.” She seemed to be waiting for more, so Tom ticked off the major players on his virtual fingers: “India and America are allies, and the Euro-Australian block is aligned with us. Russia and China are allies, and they’re supported by the African states and the South American Federation. The Coalition of Multinationals, the twelve most powerful corporations in the world, is split down the middle between our two sides. And . . . yeah. That’s about it.”

  That was pretty much all he knew about the war. He wasn’t sure what else she wanted. He couldn’t list all the tiny little countries allied with the two sides if he tried, and he doubted anyone else in the room could, either. There was a reason Rosewood was a reform school—most of its students couldn’t cut it in a real, building one.

  “Would you like to explain one notable characteristic about this offshored conflict, as opposed to wars in ages past?”

  “No?” he tried hopefully.

  “I wasn’t really asking. Now answer the question.”

  Tom started twirling his pencil again. This was how Ms. Falmouth operated. She questioned him until he ran through all his knowledge, messed up, and looked like an idiot. This time he’d give it to her. “Dunno. Sorry.”

  Ms. Falmouth sighed as though she expected nothing more, and moved onto her next victim. “Heather, you two look to be making fast friends. If you’re talking during class on your first day here, maybe you can list a notable characteristic for Tom.”

  Heather gave Tom a quick, sidelong look, then answered, “By going to war on other planets, and avoiding fights on Earth, we resolve issues through violence, but we avoid most of the consequences of traditional warfare such as debilitating injuries, human deaths, disruption of infrastructure, and environmental contamination. That’s four notable characteristics. Do you want me to list more than that, Ms. Falmouth?”

  Ms. Falmouth was silent for several seconds, perhaps stunned at how readily Heather had answered the question. “That’ll quite do, Heather. Very . . . well articulated. Offshored conflicts are practical socially as well as ecologically.” She strode to the board. “I’d like you all to think of some ways the nature of conflict has shifted the consequences we face. . . .”

  Heather took the opportunity to whisper to Tom, “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”

  Tom laughed softly and shook his head. “You didn’t get me in trouble. This is just Ms. Falmouth letting me know how much she missed me.”

  His gloves vibrated, signaling that someone was making physical contact with his avatar. Tom glanced down, startled, and saw her hand resting on his arm. Her voice was a breathy whisper. “You sure?”

  Tom stared at her as Ms. Falmouth’s voice carried on: “. . . exported conflicts serve several purposes . . .”

  “I’m sure,” he told her, so keenly aware of her touch she might as well have been next to him touching him in real life, too.

  Heather’s hand trailed down his arm and then slipped away. She nestled it back on her desktop. Tom found himself wondering what she actually looked like. Her avatar didn’t even look like a ninth grader—was she older than him?

  “With the weaponry we use nowadays,” Ms. Falmouth said beside the board, “we could destroy the ionosphere, irradiate the planet, vaporize the oceans. By exporting our wars and engaging Russia and China on, say, Saturn instead of on Earth, we can hash out our disagreements over resource allocation without the devastating consequences of traditional warfare, as Heather explained just now. In ages past, people believed that World War Three would end all civilization. A famous quote by Albert Einstein: ‘I know not with what weapons World War Three will be fought, but World War Four will be fought with sticks and stones.’ But we’re in the middle of World War Three, and we’re far from ending civilization.”

  Ms. Falmouth twitched her finger and the chalkboard morphed into a screen. “Now, I’d like to focus upon the current Intrasolar Forces. I want you to turn your thoughts to the teenagers who are out there deciding the future of your country. We’ll play a short video clip.”

  Tom sat up straighter, watching the screen resolve into an outdoor view of the Pentagon and the tall tower jutting from the middle—the Pentagonal Spire—and then to a newsroom where a familiar teenage boy sat with a reporter.

  It was Elliot Ramirez.

  Tom slumped back down in his seat. Behind him, Serge Leon actually cried out in dismay, “Not Dorkmirez!”

  Elliot Ramirez was everywhere. Everyone knew him—the handsome, smiling, all-American seventeen-year-old who represented the future of Indo-American supremacy in the solar system. He was in commercials, on bulletin boards, his bright grin flashing and dark eyes twinkling on cereal boxes, on vitamin bottles, on T-shirts. Whenever a new Indo-American victory was announced on the news, Elliot was trotted out to give an interview and to talk about how America was sure to win now! And of course, Elliot was front and center in Nobridis, Inc.’s public service announcements because they sponsored him. He was one of the young trainees who controlled American machines in outer space, one of the Americans dedicated to taking down the Russo-Chinese alliance and claiming the solar system for the Indo-American allies.

  “How did you get call sign Ares?” the reporter asked Elliot. “That’s the Greek god of war, I understand. It says a lot about your battlefield prowess.”

  Elliot’s chuckle flashed his white teeth. “I didn’t choose ‘Ares’ for myself, but I guess my fellow soldiers thought it should be my call sign. They pleaded with me to take it. I couldn’t refuse the appeals of my brothers-in-arms.”

  Tom laughed. He couldn’t help it. Several female avatars whirled around to shush him.

  The image on the screen flickered briefly to a battle in space—one ship marked “Ares” flying toward a dispersed mass of ships, “The Battle of Titan” captioned below it. The reporter’s voice carried on over the image: “. . . great deal of attention these last few years, Mr. Ramirez. How do you feel about the public’s fascination with you?”

  “To tell you the truth, I don’t see myself as a great hero the way so many people do. It’s the machines that do all the fighting in space. I just control them. You could say”—and here the image flipped back to Elliot just as he threw a wink at the camera—“I’m just a kid who likes to play with robots.”

  Tom kept remembering the only interview of Elliot Ramirez he’d ever sat through before this one. His father was in the hotel room with him, and he’d insisted on watching the entire thing several times because he was convinced that the famed Elliot Ramirez wasn’t a real person. He refused to change the channel until Tom was convinced of it, too.

  “That’s not a boy. That’s a computer simulation,” Neil had declared.

  “People have seen him in person, Dad.”

  “No human being acts like that! Look how he blinks every fifteen seconds on the dot. Time it. And then look at that—whenever he raises his eyebrows, it’s to the exact same height. Every single time. That smile, too. Always the same width. That’s a computer-generated simulation of a human. I guarantee it.”

  “Who’s the reporter talking to, then?”

  “She’s in on it, too. Who owns the mainstream media? Corporations. That’s who.”

  “Right. So I guess Wheaties is putting a fake kid on their boxes, and Nobridis—the corporate sponsor Elliot mentions every time he’s interviewed—is also parading around a guy they’ve never met? And every senator and celebrity who’s had a phot
o op with him—he’s just digitally inserted in those? Oh, and don’t forget all those people on the internet who say they’ve gotten his autograph. . . . They’re all in on it, too, right?”

  Neil’s spit began flying. “Tom, I am telling you, this Elliot kid is not a real person. This is how the corporate oligarchy works. They want a pretty face to make their agenda look good for the masses. A real human being is unpredictable. Create a computer-generated human to be the representation of your organization? Then you control everything about that representation. He’s no different from a logo, an action figure, a piece of insignia.”

  “And you’re the only one in the world who’s picked up on this.”

  “What, you think the American sheeple are going to question the corporatocracy? They’re too busy doing their patriotic duty, gutting their own country to fund a war over which Coalition CEO gets the biggest yacht this year. Wake up, Tom! I don’t want any son of mine buying into the establishment propaganda.”

  “I don’t. I don’t,” Tom had protested.

  He wanted his dad to be right. He really did. Even now, he studied Elliot and tried to see something fake and computer simulated about him, but he just saw a cheesy kid madly in love with himself who laughed at his own jokes way too much.

  “What message would you like to leave viewers with tonight, Mr. Ramirez?”

  “I want them to know, we kids at the Pentagonal Spire aren’t making the big sacrifice. Saving the country’s pretty fun! It’s you, the American taxpayers, who keep the fight for our nation going strong. And thanks to Nobridis, Inc., the Indo-American alliance is more—”

  “Saving. The. Country.” Ms. Falmouth flipped off the video segment as Elliot launched into promoting Nobridis. “The next time you think you have too much homework, I want you to consider the burden on this young man’s shoulders. Elliot Ramirez is out there forging a future for our nation, securing the solar system’s resources for us, and you don’t hear him complaining, do you?”

  The bell filled the sim. Ms. Falmouth didn’t even get a chance to dismiss them. Students began fizzling away.

  Tom was normally among the first to sign off. He wasn’t this time because just as he raised his hand to yank off the VR visor, Heather spoke up. “Are you signing off already?”

  She sounded disappointed about it. Tom dropped his hand again. “Not yet.”

  She scooted her desk over so they were sitting right next to each other. Despite himself, Tom felt his hands grow sweaty in his wired gloves.

  “Can you believe Elliot Ramirez?” Heather said, tossing her dark hair out of her eyes. “His ego almost explodes out of the screen, doesn’t it? I felt like ducking and covering.”

  “I can’t believe you’re a real girl and you’re not in love with Elliot Ramirez,” Tom said appreciatively. Then it occurred to him: she might not even be a real girl. For all he knew, she was a guy with a voice modifier who’d hacked the school feed.

  “Let’s just say, I feel like I know enough about Elliot not to buy the hype.” There was something coy in her voice that made him wonder if he was missing a joke.

  “And you really are a girl?” Tom couldn’t resist asking.

  “I am so a girl!”

  “Yeah, well, I won’t believe it till I see it.”

  “Is this your way of asking me to video chat?” Heather bantered.

  Tom hadn’t thought to ask her to do that. He recovered from his surprise quickly. “Yes?”

  Heather twirled a lock of her dark hair around her finger. “So, this is an online school,” she said coyly. “Is video chatting Rosewood’s version of a date?”

  Tom opened and closed his mouth. She didn’t sound like she hated the idea. “Do you want it to be?”

  Heather smiled. “What network address will you be at tomorrow, Tom?”

  HE WAS ONLY half in the moment as he gave her his network address, as he promised her he’d be right at the same network address tomorrow when they met. He didn’t care if they were meeting at an obscenely early hour—two hours before school began. Heather said it was because of the time zone she was in. Tom decided he’d stay up all night if he had to. His brain was whirling. He had a date . . . kind of. With a real, live girl . . . he hoped.

  After she logged off, he stood there by his desk—though he was really sitting stock-still on the couch in the VR parlor—just staring at the empty space where she’d been, the enormity of asking a girl out for the first time and having the girl say yes beating through his brain. And to think, he’d thought this would be just another ordinary day. . . .

  A throat cleared.

  Tom noticed suddenly that he and Ms. Falmouth were the only ones left in the virtual classroom.

  “I was just logging off,” Tom said quickly, reaching up in the real world to tear off his visor.

  “Not quite yet, Tom,” Ms. Falmouth said. “Stay a moment. I think we need to talk.”

  Oh.

  A heaviness settled in Tom’s chest, because he’d half expected this, and it wasn’t good.

  “Let’s go to my office.” Ms. Falmouth twitched her fingers to alter the program, and the landscape shifted around them into a private office. She settled at one side of the imposing desk. Tom navigated himself into the seat opposite, and waited for some hint of what she needed to hear before she’d let him off the hook this time.

  “Tom,” she said, folding her hands on her desk, “I am concerned about this attendance situation.”

  Tom let out a breath. “I figured.”

  “You were referred to this institution because your father somehow let you reach age eleven without enrolling you in school. We’ve worked to catch you up, but I don’t feel you’re making the same progress as the rest of the class. In fact, considering that you’re very rarely in class, I am finding this situation outright unmanageable.”

  “Maybe I need an alternative school,” Tom suggested.

  “This already is an alternative school. This is the end of the line.”

  “I try.”

  “No, you don’t. And what’s more, your father doesn’t try, either. Do you realize you missed two quizzes and a history paper last week?”

  “It couldn’t be helped.”

  “Russo-Chinese hackers, right?” she said. “Or perhaps you were taken hostage by terrorists again, or washed out to sea and stranded on a desert island without internet access?”

  “Not quite.” But he’d really get a kick out of using that one sometime in the future.

  “Tom, you are not taking this seriously—and that’s your problem. This is not some silly game: this is your future and you are throwing it away with both hands. You promised me a month ago that you would never miss class again.” Ms. Falmouth’s avatar gazed at him with an unnatural, unblinking intensity. “We signed a learning contract, don’t you remember?”

  Tom didn’t point out that she’d made him promise not to miss class again. What had she expected him to tell her, the truth? Should he have outright admitted he probably wasn’t going to show up at school? She would’ve just yelled at him for “being insolent” again.

  “This is not about me,” Ms. Falmouth went on. “It’s not about your father, even: it is about you, Tom. You realize that whatever actions I take from here, they’re for your own good. I cannot sit back and allow a fourteen-year-old boy’s entire life to be sabotaged by an irresponsible parent who will not even ensure he gets a proper education.”

  Tom sat up in both the sim and the VR parlor. “What does that even mean—‘whatever actions you take from here’?”

  “It means you’re under court order to attend school, and you have not been attending. Last week, I reported your absences to Child Protective Services.”

  Tom slouched back, feeling like he’d just been socked in the stomach. This was not going to end well. Maybe he wasn’t reaching great heights of achievement with Neil, but life in foster care wouldn’t be a land of hope and opportunity either.

  And no way could he sta
y at his mom’s.

  No way, no way.

  Dalton, her boyfriend, paid for her fancy apartment in New York City. Tom had visited her once, just once, and he’d met him. Dalton Prestwick was this rich, yacht-owning executive at some big multinational company, Dominion Agra. His job was to enforce their copyright or something.

  Dalton had looked him over like he was something nasty smeared on the bottom of his leather shoes and said, “My attorneys have documented everything of value in this house, punk. The second something goes missing, I’ll have you in juvenile hall.”

  Oh, and Dalton already had a wife. And another girlfriend. Yeah, and Tom’s mom.

  “I don’t have anywhere else to go, Ms. Falmouth. I know you think you’re doing me a favor, but you’re not. I promise you.”

  “You’re fourteen, Tom. What do you expect to do with yourself in a few years when you need to make a living? Do you plan to be a roving gambler like your father?”

  “No,” Tom answered at once.

  “A roving gamer?”

  He wasn’t quite sure how much Ms. Falmouth knew about his gaming, but he didn’t say anything. If she’d asked him what he planned to be, he might’ve said exactly that—he might’ve announced that he’d make his living one day the same way he was doing it now.

  Only, the thought of living like this forever, the thought of going nowhere in life . . .

  The thought of turning into his father . . .

  Suddenly it made Tom feel kind of fuzzy and clenched up inside like he was getting sick.

  Ms. Falmouth leaned back in her seat. “You’re competing in a global economy. One out of three Americans is unemployed. You need an education to be an engineer, a programmer, or anything of use to the defense industry. You need an education to be an accountant or a lawyer, and you need connections to go into government or corporate work. Who do you think will hire a young man like you when there are so many high-achieving candidates out there who are desperate for work?”

  “It’s years away.”

  “Pretend it’s tomorrow. What are you going to do with yourself? What are you good for?”