Insignia

by S. J. Kincaid

  His dad looked older than he remembered, smaller somehow, in the whitewash of the scenery. He turned around when he heard Tom’s footsteps crunch their way over. He gazed at him. “My God, is that what you look like now?”

  “Scanned myself in today.” Tom glanced down at himself, self-conscious. “Just a growth spurt.”

  “Your face. Look at that.” Neil closed the distance. “Your skin . . .”

  The knots in Tom’s chest loosened, because this was his father. He didn’t need to worry about this. He could reason with him. “Regular showers, Dad. They help. You get the money I put down for you at the Dusty Squanto?”

  “Just tell me the person you ripped off deserved it,” Neil said wryly.

  “Trust me, he did.”

  The eyes of Neil’s avatar narrowed. He studied Tom very closely. “Smile, Tom.”

  “Smile?” Tom echoed.

  “Yes. Smile.”

  Confused, Tom smiled.

  “Raise your eyebrows,” Neil said, eyes still narrowed.

  And Tom knew exactly why Neil was asking him to do this: just like when he’d seen that interview with Elliot on the TV, he must’ve noticed something wrong about Tom’s face, about the way he was moving, the neural processor regulating his expressions. The last thing his dad needed to know about was the computer in Tom’s brain.

  “Dad,” Tom lied, “this is an avatar. If I look different, it’s because this is a projected image. This isn’t what my face actually looks like.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure. Megapixels distort things. The science is really technical and I doubt you want me to go into it.” Tom didn’t know the science, but he nodded like he did.

  Neil rubbed at his chin.

  “You’ve always hated VR stuff, anyway,” Tom said.

  “The real world’s an ugly place, Tom. But I’m not gonna hide from it. Your grandfather was that way—paid more attention to some World of Warcraft than he did to us. Now, are you sure, are you absolutely sure . . .” He made a vague gesture, but Tom knew what he was asking. It was about the lawsuit.

  “Yeah, I’m sure you should drop the lawsuit. I had this situation, but it cleared up. I’m staying at the Spire, after all.”

  Neil dropped his voice and inched closer, as though that made any difference in VR if someone was eavesdropping on them. “Tom, you’re sure? If the military’s giving you a problem, I’ll figure something out.”

  “Dad, it’s really okay now. I only needed you to give me a trump card in this one situation. I was . . .” He fumbled for a way to say it that Neil might appreciate, a way that wouldn’t reveal anything classified. He came up with it. “I was bluffing.”

  “Bluffing, eh?”

  “Yeah. Gambling for something. And I won.”

  His father studied him for a long moment. Then his lips cracked in a knowing smile. “I bet I know what you were gambling for.”

  Tom wondered what his theory could be. “Do you?”

  Neil leaned toward him. “You were aiming to fly in that Capitol Summit thing, weren’t you?”

  Tom jerked. “What?”

  “It was everywhere, clips of the way we won this year. I knew with one look it wasn’t that Ramirez kid. Flying right at that satellite? I saw that, and I knew it was my boy.”

  “How did—how did—” Tom stopped, realizing he’d given away too much.

  “I’ve seen you play thousands of those games. Think I don’t know how your brain works, Tommy?”

  Tom stared at his dad’s collar. Neil had seen him play games over the years. He’d noticed him.

  “Er, I found out something yesterday,” Tom said. “We have promotions twice a year, right? And I heard I’m getting promoted.” He wasn’t sure why he suddenly wanted Neil to know. “It’s to Middle Company. It’s not Camelot Company yet, but it might be soon. I might be one of the call signs on the news one day.”

  Neil turned away from him and squinted into the sunlight. “Rising up the ranks, huh?”

  Tom watched Neil’s back, waiting for some jab about serving the “corporate war machine.”

  But Neil surprised him with, “Sorry I can’t be there to see that.”

  Tom couldn’t speak. He could not say a word.

  He turned to stare into the distance, just like his dad was, aware of his chest aching as he stood next to him on top of Mount Everest. For the first time, he knew that even if his father hated what he was doing, he was still proud of him.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  .....................................................................

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “GORMLESS CRETIN.”

  Vik’s words, spoken a few days later as they stood in formation outside the doorway to the Lafayette Room, made Tom jump. “What now?”

  “It’s your new nickname,” Vik said.

  The long-awaited manly equivalent of Evil Wench didn’t make much sense to Tom. The formation of a dozen plebes began marching forward into the room. His brain was not sorting out the reference. What did “gormless” mean?

  “Not stored in your neural processor, right?” Vik raised his eyebrows as the doors parted around them. “I picked it on purpose just for that. We have a deal—you have to answer to it.”

  Tom laughted. “Fine, but, Vik, nothing in the world can top Spicy Indian.”

  “Die slowly, Tom.”

  Tom laughed as they marched into the Lafayette Room and began heading down the aisle in single file At the front of the room, Marsh, Cromwell, and Blackburn waited on the stage. The rest of the trainees stood at attention in front of their benches for the ceremony.

  Tom caught eyes with Yuri in the plebe section—and received a faint smile. As much as Yuri had tried to put on a cheerful show when he heard all his friends were getting promoted, it obviously bothered him. First he’d been scrambled, and now this: more confirmation he didn’t have a chance of moving up in the ranks. Tom turned back to the stage and arranged his face into a stiff, formal, getting-promoted-type expression. A quick glance at Vik told him he was doing the same—straining so hard for a serious expression that he just looked constipated.

  They stood in a line in front of the stage while Marsh launched into a speech about patriotism. Major Cromwell’s lids drooped, like she was about to fall asleep. And Blackburn was standing rigidly in place, like he’d braced himself for an impending root canal.

  The best musicians among the trainees played a march when the speech ended, and the plebes scheduled for promotion filed up to the stage. Vik was the first to received his promotion—a neural chip with upgrades from Blackburn, a new rank badge from Cromwell, and then a handshake from General Marsh. Tom searched Vik’s face as he left the stage for any sign of pride, but something was off there. He looked a bit pale. It wasn’t until Vik’s eyes darted to Yuri in the plebe section, that Tom realized why: Vik was worrying about the treason they’d committed together. Wyatt was the next to stand before a granite-faced Blackburn. She stared below him and he looked above her as he thrust a neural chip with a new set of software updates into her hand. She almost stumbled in her eagerness to move on to face Cromwell.

  Tom’s name was called last. Blackburn’s jaw clenched. He stared at him with an intent, unblinking gaze as he handed him the neural chip. Tom took it, and decided he was going to get Wyatt to scan this whole thing, directory by directory, before hooking it into his brain. He saw a flash of satisfaction on Cromwell’s face as she switched the old rank badge on the collar of his tunic with a new one: same eagle, only with two arrow-type lines beneath it instead of one. Marsh shook his hand, pride in his face.

  As the ceremony concluded, and the trainees applauded the newly promoted, Tom scanned the reactions in Camelot Company assembled in the front row. Karl’s lips were curled down as he sulked. Then Elliot nudged him, and he began the world’s most halfhearted clapping.

  As Heather clapped, her gaze moved
to Tom’s and locked on—and he found suddenly that he couldn’t tear his eyes from hers. There was still something mesmerizing about the intensity of her stare. He broke away then, his ears growing hot, feeling foolish. The band played them from the room as the assembled trainees stood at attention.

  Tom felt like he could breathe again once in the main lobby beneath the enormous, outstretched wings of the golden eagle. Vik plodded up behind him, so Tom turned and elbowed him, hoping to knock some life back into his face and get him over whatever it was troubling him. “Come on, man. Cheer up. Doctors of Doom aren’t supposed to worry about stuff.”

  Vik turned to him, his voice dropping to the faintest of whispers. “Tom, what if we regret this?”

  “What, you think Yuri is actually an evil spy?” Tom said just as softly.

  “No, I just—” Vik looked around quickly, checking again to make sure no one was close to them. “Come on, Tom! We did something we don’t have a right to do. It’s treason.”

  Surviving the census device and winning Capitol Summit had left Tom feeling near invincible. He’d been there, done that. “Look, if we’re just careful, no one will know. If they start to suspect? Then we get Wyatt to change him back. And if that doesn’t work, then I’ll take the blame, okay? You’re safe. I’ll be the idiot here.”

  That seemed to mollify Vik. His voice rose to a normal volume. “Well, of course you’re the idiot here, Gormless Cretin.”

  “What is a gormless cretin?” Tom burst out.

  “A redundancy.” Wyatt’s voice rang out from behind them. She emerged from the crowd filling the lobby, Yuri behind her. “A ‘dim-witted dumb person.’”

  Tom groaned. “Really, Vik?”

  “The fact that you needed Wyatt to explain it for you supports my ‘gormless’ theory,” Vik argued.

  Wyatt spoke up. “We’ve got break coming up. Can we do something our last night other than stand around here?”

  Yuri smiled, all earnest, goofy adoration of her. “We should all go out. I have found an appropriate promotion ritual. It’s called wetting down.”

  “Wetting down?” Wyatt said. “Where you buy us drinks and throw us into a body of water?”

  Yuri’s smile dropped off his lips. “I was going to buy dinner instead.”

  “Dinner’s fine, but forget throwing us in the water.”

  “Yeah,” Vik spoke up, completely in agreement with Wyatt for once. “Every company in the world dumps stuff in the Atlantic. We’d have kids with five arms.”

  “They could form one-person bands,” Tom told Vik.

  He saw Vik’s eyes light up with the possibilities.

  Wyatt cried, “No. No throwing us in the water! You’re still buying us dinner, though, Yuri.” There was no question in her tone.

  The others headed upstairs to change clothes. Tom lingered, staring at the golden eagle, amazed that he’d thought it was glaring at him his first day in the Spire. It had been so intimidating. But it looked smaller now, somehow. Or maybe he’d just grown.

  A shadow slid over the marble floor behind him. He turned—and met yellow-brown eyes and a starship-wrecking smile.

  “Heather.”

  “Congratulations, Tom. I knew you’d go places here.”

  “Oh, you mean Middle?” Tom fingered his new insignia self-consciously. “Yeah, thanks.”

  “No, I’m talking about that other thing.” Her eyes twinkled, and he knew she was congratulating him for winning the Capitol Summit. “Looks like you’re going to be with us in CamCo someday.”

  Tom straightened and held her eyes, awed by the thought. It really looked to be a sure thing now, didn’t it? Marsh’s look on the stage, his reaction, Elliot’s friendship, now this. . . . He’d make his way here. It was only a matter of time.

  “Are you heading out with your friends?” Heather stepped closer. “I thought I’d take you somewhere to congratulate you.” She let out a breath that fluttered her dark hair. “Of course, I’ve also been asked to talk to you about opportunities down the road with my sponsor, Wyndham Harks, but really . . .” Her eyes flickered downward and then traveled back up to his in a way that made him aware of how hard his heart was beating. Her voice sounded a bit breathy as she said, “I’m just so excited for an excuse to hang out with you.”

  The glitter in her amber eyes dared him to do something reckless. Tom found it a bit hard to catch his breath suddenly, keenly aware of how close she was—close enough for him to smell her shampoo. Coconut. He realized suddenly that she could still do this to him—she could still make him feel like that shrimpy kid his first day at the Spire, so thrilled a girl was talking to him. Maybe she’d always be able to do it.

  But his thoughts kept wandering away from her toward something else, something much more compelling. Someone else.

  And suddenly, Tom’s brain was working again, and he found himself answering Heather with a shake of his head. “Sorry, I’ve got something I have to do.”

  TOM DIDN’T KNOW why tonight would be any different. He’d hooked into VR every day since the Capitol Summit. He wasn’t sure why it mattered so much, this hope of finding her. He knew he’d destroyed whatever he had had with Medusa, and even if he hadn’t . . . if he hadn’t . . . that pretty Chinese girl he’d built up in his imagination didn’t exist. And she knew the guy she’d met over the internet didn’t really exist, either. What could have prepared her for the person he turned out to be? Nothing in their conversations, in their battles, in those moments when they smiled at each other over their bared swords, could’ve readied her for the truth about him: that he was someone who could do something so vicious, so personal, so cruel—just to win against her.

  It bothered Tom to think about it, so he tried not to. And maybe he would’ve been a better person if he’d just left her alone after what happened. But whenever he closed his eyes, he still saw her flying, fighting with ferocious genius. He still remembered that kiss.

  So he still returned to the internet. He hooked in straight from his bunk. Maybe it was reckless overconfidence, but he couldn’t bring himself to fear much of anything after the events of Capitol Summit. General Marsh had called him up to his office to congratulate him again. Members of CamCo suddenly waved to him in the corridors, and upper-level Alexanders had all started talking to him like he’d been inducted into some club he didn’t even know about. Lieutenant Blackburn was careful never to bother him in class, not even for demonstrations. He’d taken instead to watching Tom from across the mess hall, across the lobby, but still never breathing a word to his face.

  So Tom lay on his bed and checked their message board, then he visited their simulations. Siegfried and Brunhilde’s stone castle stood empty, no queen of Iceland waiting, sword in hand. No luck in the old RPG of the Egyptian queen and the ogre, either. Prepared for disappointment, he hooked into the Renaissance England simulation—and found himself snapping into character.

  He was facing her again.

  She stood by a throne at the head of the English royal court, her back to him, simulated courtiers milling about on all sides. Tom stood before her, tension making his every muscle clench. He glanced down at his character, and the simulation informed him he was Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex. When Medusa turned toward him, he was greeted not by the pretty redheaded princess, but the aged face of what the program informed him was The sixty-seven-year-old Queen Elizabeth I. Her lips curled into a thin, downward twist and her cold eyes glittered like polished onyx, black and hard.

  Tom closed his own eyes, the information spinning in his head.

  The young Earl of Essex flattered and flirted with the much older Queen Elizabeth. He took advantage of her affection and betrayed her. As he began to fall from favor, he fought her guards and charged desperately into her chamber. He burst inside before she’d been made up for the day—and beheld her aged face, her white hair without a wig. All pretense of flirtation between them shattered in one instant. Shortly after, she ordered him beheaded.

 
; She must’ve edited it. It was too pointed. Tom opened his eyes again and faced her unflinchingly. “I need to talk to you.”

  “What could you possibly have to say to me?” Her voice was cold.

  He’d prepared for this. He waggled his fingers, accessed an image file—taken from the Spire’s database. His guise as the Earl of Essex vanished, replaced instantly by another: the Tom Raines who had walked into the Spire. The short, skinny kid with terrible acne, flat blond hair, a slouched posture. Tom stood there as that guy, the guy he’d sworn not to show her, and then opened his arms wide to let her see him in all his . . . well, his complete lack of magnificence.

  “This is me. Okay?”

  “That’s not you.” Medusa waved Elizabeth’s wrinkled hand, and her own appearance morphed. A boy Tom almost didn’t recognize stood in her place.

  The boy was him. Tom as he was now. A taller, clear-skinned guy with cold blue eyes, who stood there with a confident posture controlled by a neural processor, whose muscles had been honed during Calisthenics, whose self-assurance radiated from every plane of his face.

  Tom stared at his other self, feeling like he was regarding a stranger. “When did you see me?”

  “I peeked at the security cameras in the Beringer Club.”

  Tom raised his eyebrows at her: she had to see the irony.

  “Yes, I’m a hypocrite. It doesn’t change anything.” Medusa sagged back into the throne. “You can’t do this. You can’t pull a move like that, be cutthroat like that, and then come here and be nice.”

  “I just want to make it right.”

  “Then let me hate you.”

  He felt like he’d been punched. “You hate me now?”

  Medusa raised a finger, and Tom found himself standing there as his newer self. She morphed back into the girl he’d seen briefly, and he fought the urge to look away. He fought the urge to stare, too. He felt trapped by those eyes that gazed out from her ruined face. He couldn’t imagine moving through the world like that. Like a monster.