by Katrina Cope
Aaron glanced at Shelly’s small frame jumping up and down with anger and couldn’t help but smile at the very unthreatening-looking little girl with her tight blond curls, pretty blue dress and sweet-looking face. He hid his smile and said, “I’ve got it under control, Shelly.”
“Well, let me know when you need some help, because I am sure willing to show him who’s boss.” She flicked her ringlets away from her face with her hand.
Aaron turned to Damian. “Damian, this is shadow sparring, not full contact. I am reminding you once again. If you do this again, it will be me you’ll be sparring.” Aaron moved over to Robert to check if he was okay.
Knowing how good Aaron was, Jayden thought that was a pretty strong threat and was surprised to see Damian still smiling as if he didn’t care. He watched as Robert said he was okay and bravely went to face Damian again.
“Okay, everyone, time to get back into it. Face each other, charyot, kyong-ye, shijak.” He started them again in Korean.
Jayden and James were having some fun with each other, teasing with fake moves and hitting lightly with the real ones. Even though it wasn’t full sparring, it was excellent practice for reading an opponent. After about a minute into the fight, Robert was down again, this time clutching his head. He was lucky he had his fully padded headgear around his head and mouth guard in.
“All right, that’s it, Damian!” Aaron sounded peeved. “It’s now you and me.”
Damian looked at him, trying to wipe the smile off his face, his blue eyes as cold as ice. “What? It was an accident,” he said with fake innocence.
It wasn’t like Aaron to settle for a fight, but Jayden guessed he was trying to teach Damian a lesson. Jayden watched as Aaron centered himself, breathing deeply and pushing aside the annoyance of Damian’s disrespect for other people. Remembering he was still in charge of a class, he turned and instructed the current contenders to step aside and let the other half of the class line up with their partners to spar.
While his attention was focused on getting the class moving, Damian had a go at Aaron, trying to place a kick on his stomach.
Aaron knew Damian well enough to expect this and caught his foot before it contacted. While still holding his foot, he shook his head at Damian. “You are supposed to wait until we have bowed and started,” he reprimanded while throwing his foot to the ground.
Jayden and James bowed to each other to show respect and exited the floor. Jayden went straight to Robert. “Are you okay?” He helped him take the padded headgear off.
Once it was off, Robert nodded. “Yeah. I’m fine. He was playing nasty as usual.”
“You got that right! He managed to agitate Aaron. I’ve never seen that before.”
“Yeah, Aaron probably has just had enough of his crap, and this was the last straw.”
“He plays nasty.” Shelly’s cute little voice joined the conversation. “I sure hope Aaron shows him up.”
As he looked at the little person with so much attitude, Jayden had trouble remembering she was a robot.
Eva was up for sparring, and she was against Ashley. Jayden sat down next to Robert and watched a little of their fighting. They were pretty equal and did some excellent maneuvers, but the fight between Aaron and Damian grabbed all of his attention.
“You show him, Ari!” Jessica yelled from the side, pride sounding in her voice. She had just finished her sparring round and was out of breath.
Damian and Aaron were padded up in full Tae Kwon Do gear, including shin pads, mouth guards, and groin guards. Shadow sparring was no longer an option between the two of them. It was full contact. Aaron stood relaxed in fighting stance and ready for anything that would be coming his way. Damian, on the other hand, looked tense and prepared to pounce at any second. Aaron didn’t seem intimidated and remained on the balls of his feet, watching Damian’s cold eyes, ready for anything Damian might throw at him.
He didn’t have to wait long, as Damian was impatient, arrogant, and always on the attack. Damian moved quickly to roundhouse kick Aaron’s stomach. Aaron dodged it enough for it to miss and planted a roundhouse kick on Damian’s unguarded stomach, and a thud resonated through the room.
Damian’s face contorted for a moment then filled with annoyance. He swung around, trying to kick a roundhouse to Aaron’s head. Aaron ducked, and the kick went over his head. At the same time, he slid in sideways and planted a side kick into Damian’s stomach.
Damian’s face clouded with annoyance, and his eyes flared with aggression. He continued to attack Aaron with less finesse, and each time Aaron would dodge the hits and land a strike on Damian.
Every time Aaron made a hit, Shelly would cheer, and then she would stand at the side and pretend she was the one fighting him, throwing air punches toward Damian.
“You think you’re all that, don’t you?” Damian said to Aaron.
Aaron didn’t justify the question with an answer. Instead, he remained poised and ready for the next attack. Damian lunged forward, trying to get a front kick into his stomach as Aaron stood aside and watched Damian’s foot slide past without connecting. He could have easily done a back fist or something similar to Damian’s face, but he left it.
Pulling himself together after missing again, Damian tried some more insults. “You really do think you’re hot stuff and that your crap doesn’t stink,” he said spitefully. “Well, I’m going to make sure that you come down a few notches. I have already started on some of your work.”
Confused, Aaron asked, “What are you even talking about? You’re not making any sense. Have I managed to hit you in the head and not realized it?” He looked at him under a cocked eyebrow.
Damian still circled Aaron threateningly, with Aaron not looking the slightest bit fazed as he turned slowly to keep his eyes on Damian.
Damian’s eyes constricted. “Oh, goody! You’re dumber than I thought, and my thoughts about your intelligence level were pretty low.” He continued to circle him. “Am I to assume that you didn’t notice how much hassle the person who took over your surrogate, Brendan, had caused by acting nothing like you usually do?”
Aaron frowned. “What exactly are you trying to say?”
“So I have to spell it out for you, do I? Okay, here is some simple English. I… am… the person… who took over Brendan… while you were injured and unable to operate him.” His face was smug. “I had them questioning Brendan’s integrity completely by the time I had finished.”
Hearing this, Aaron paused for a moment then sprang in with a double roundhouse, kicking Damian in the stomach and then in the head, his foot connecting with Damian’s mouth hard enough to give him a fat lip. He jumped out of reach too quickly for Damian to respond. Damian lifted his hand to his mouth, touched the sore spot, and pulled his hand away to glance at the blood, which had transferred from his mouth onto his hand. A cruel smile lit his face, and a soft, evil cackle exited his mouth. Damian’s eyes turned a colder blue while staring at Aaron. “I’ll take that as a yes. It must’ve been painful for you to sort out the mess I left behind. Tell me, has that Hayley chick gotten off your case yet about how inconsistent your personality is?”
Aaron skipped forward quickly and landed a side kick straight into Damian’s stomach, causing Damian to slump forward and grasp where the foot had connected. Jayden noticed that Aaron had lost his cool.
Shelly and Jessica cried out with excitement as they watched the fight with heightened anticipation.
Before Aaron could deliver any more kicks, Jayden jumped up, acting as a self-appointed referee. “Okay!” he yelled, the awkwardness sounding in his voice. “Time out!” He formed a big T with his hands. “It’s been five minutes already. Time to call it quits for everyone. Face your partners,” he said to the whole class. “Charyot, kyong-ye.”
They all stood and bowed to each other.
Once bowed out, Jayden raced over to Aaron to help him get out of his protective gear, except Jessica had beaten him to it and was smothering him with atten
tion.
“You okay, Aaron?” he asked over Jessica’s shoulders.
“Yeah, man. I’m fine.” He ran a hand through his hair.
“What was that last bit about? You looked like you were starting to lose control,” Jayden asked.
Aaron looked deep in thought. “I guess I was. I think it flicked a switch when he told me he was the one who gave Brendan a split personality.” Aaron looked at Robert and Eva. “Did you know about this?”
Robert shook his head. “No. Avando had us working on something else in the video tech lessons, and naturally, Damian would have been in the other room, out of sight.”
“What was he thinking, putting Damian in charge of my surrogate?” Aaron said, shaking his head in disbelief. “I wonder what else Damian may be mucking up for us.”
Jayden wondered if Damian was the one Scarlet was talking about. After thinking it over for a little while, he concluded that Damian wasn’t smart enough to program Scarlet into silence, so he scrapped him off the list of suspects.
“Hey, where’s Shelly?” Robert searched around the group.
The friends immediately started looking around the room for the little robot. Jayden’s eyes fell on the blond curly head just in time to see her by Damian, tapping him on the side, trying to get his attention.
Robert moved to grab her, but he didn’t make it in time. Damian had turned to face the person who was tapping him. When he did, he was greeted with an upper palm strike to his groin. Shelly was just the right size to execute such a strike. Damian folded over in pain, holding himself as he fell to the floor. Shelly immediately turned back to join them, wearing the biggest self-satisfied grin on her face.
~~~~~
IT HAD BEEN about a week since Dr. Ernest had caught them in the secret labs. Liam had hardly eaten all week because of sheer nervousness, and he felt like he was developing a twitch. He hadn’t heard anything from Dr. Ernest as to what their fate would be at Ernest State College or in general.
He stood in the bathroom in his pajamas, brushing his teeth in preparation to go to bed. He looked at himself in the mirror and noted the dark circles under his eyes, undoubtedly from lack of sleep, then noticed something on the end of his nose. He frowned.
He finished his teeth, spat out the toothpaste, and rinsed his mouth out then leaned in closer to the mirror to have a better look. To his horror, he realized what it was.
“A pimple!” he exclaimed louder than he intended. He looked around quickly to see if anyone else was in the room to hear him. To his relief, he was the only one in there. He looked closer. “Just what I don’t need, and it is a big one too. Probably caused by the added stress.” He studied it, wondered what he could do about it, and decided to do nothing at the moment.
The school loudspeaker sounded over his head. “Liam Honeywell, Hayley Meyers, Dryden Compton, and Brendan Ersatz, come to my office immediately.” Dr. Ernest sounded stern and unimpressed.
Liam sighed. “Today must be the day. At least now, I will find out one way or another.” He returned to his room quickly to get changed into regular day clothes, threw on a green T-shirt and dark-blue shorts, and headed to the office.
When he arrived, Hayley, Dryden, and Brendan were already waiting on the chairs outside the room. Each one looked as nervous as the other.
Dr. Ernest poked his shiny, mostly bald head out the door. “Ah, there you are, Liam. Glad you could join us.” He sounded as though he had been waiting a long time. Liam didn’t think he had taken that long but wasn’t game to point that out. They filed through the door then sat on the opposite side of Dr. Ernest’s desk, their backs straight as they sat at attention. Without even giving them a side-glance, Dr. Ernest opened the top drawer in his desk and pulled out several papers held inside a manila folder. He opened the folder and had a quick glance over the documents silently, occasionally clearing his throat.
Liam sat as still as possible, trying not to fidget while waiting for him to finish. He felt as though this additional pressure was making the red spot on his nose become sore and grow bigger. He held his hand over his nose, hoping no one would notice.
After what seemed like forever, Dr. Ernest looked up from studying the papers. “All right,” he said. “I know it’s taken a while, but I wanted to do a thorough check on your backgrounds.” He glanced at them all one by one. “I’ve done several different checks on different systems, running your names through them.”
Liam edged his way to the chair’s rim, anxious for Dr. Ernest to get it over with.
“You will be happy to know”—the edges of Dr. Ernest’s mouth turned up—“that you have all been approved. You have all received government clearance to be added into our secret lab.”
The four students breathed a loud sigh of relief as they looked at one another, their frowns replaced with smiles. Liam already felt the tension fall away from his body.
The doctor continued, pulling their attention back to him. “As an official introduction to the lab, I’m going to take you down there so that I can briefly show you our most secretive and proudest invention in more detail than a sneak peek.” He started making his way toward the office door, indicating for them to follow. The four students didn’t have to be asked twice. They jumped up to follow him with relieved but curious smiles on their faces. “I repeat, you are not to tell anyone or bring anyone down to this lab without permission. You are also not allowed, especially as junior students, to be down here by yourselves without me knowing about it first.” He continued to tell them the rules as they made their way to the lab. “Is this understood?” His eyes bored through them as he looked at them one by one.
They all nodded in response. When they made it to the lab, they were more relaxed, knowing they were allowed to be there and could have a good look around. At that moment, the labs were empty of people, as it was almost bedtime.
As they entered the well-lit room at the end of the hall where they made the surrogates, Hayley spun around to say something but stopped in her tracks when she looked at Liam. “Faulty neurons! What is that on your nose?”
Liam’s face went clammy from horror when he realized she was talking to him. It then very quickly tingled as the blood rushed to his cheeks from embarrassment.
“Is that a pimple?” Hayley’s voice was so loud it seemed like she was yelling.
Feeling even more embarrassed that he had forgotten to continue to cover it up, he quickly went on the defense. “What? You’ve never seen one before?” Sarcasm laced his voice. “I’ve been a little stressed this week, so these things happen.”
“Yeah, they do. But yours looks like it’s about to explode, and looking at the size of that thing, I don’t want to be around when that happens.” She took an exaggerated sidestep from the front of him.
“Gee! Thanks for the support, Hayley. My first pimple, and this is how you react. Remind me to be just as supportive when it happens to you.” He felt spiteful and let it sound in his voice.
“Ooo, touchy!” she teased. “I was just joking, by the way. It looks like it hurts.” Her brows puckered together.
“Well, it does. So go away,” he said, still embarrassed over the unwanted attention.
“Are you guys finished?” Brendan asked. “’Cause there are better things here to look at than a pus spot. Have you seen these things?” He pointed at the surrogates that were finished with their fake skin.
“Wow!” Hayley exclaimed. “They look so real. The ones we saw the other night didn’t have all that skin on them.”
“Don’t they?” agreed Dr. Ernest. “Once these are up and running properly, it would be near impossible for the untrained eye to tell that these were not real people.” He eyed each of the students.
When his eyes rested on Brendan, Aaron held his breath and tried to calm his heart, for it was beating so hard it felt as though it was coming out of his chest.
“An interesting last name, by the way,” Dr. Ernest addressed Brendan, unsmiling and in a curious tone. “Ersatz
.” He spoke Brendan’s last name out loud. “It means substitute, artificial, synthetic.”
Aaron gulped, and it must have transferred as a blank, shocked face on Brendan. “I had no idea.” He looked as though he meant it.
“Perhaps it should mean surrogate as well.” Dr. Ernest intently watched Brendan’s stressed face for a moment then laughed.
He pointed to the surrogate proudly while changing the subject. “They’re brilliant, aren’t they? Such a great idea.”
~~~~~
FROM THAT POINT on, Brendan didn’t pay much attention to what was going on around him. He should have been taking in everything he could from this area, but he wasn’t sure what to make of Dr. Ernest’s comment. He didn’t know if he had been found out or if the man was just making general conversation.
- Chapter Fifteen -
The Announcement
Jayden finished operating his surrogate for the lesson. He stripped off the surrogate gear and disconnected everything. Before leaving, he glanced in Aaron’s direction to see if he was done. Aaron was still connected and looked engrossed in what he was doing, so Jayden made his way into the computer room to sit with Eva and Robert. When he reached them, they were still working on the computers. He touched each of their shoulders to let them know that he was there.
Eva looked up. “Did you see?”
Jayden looked at her, puzzled. “See what?”
“He’s in,” she said.
“In what?”
“The secret lab, dummy!”
“You mean, in properly? Like, allowed access?” Jayden stared at the screen, looking for answers.
“Yes. Wow, we’re bright today.” Sarcasm rolled off her tongue.
“Well, excuse me for being too preoccupied with my job and being a ghost in the background,” he snapped. “But that’s great news about Brendan.”
“Here he comes now,” she said, looking behind Jayden.
