Orphan of Mythcorp (2 page)

It seemed to me a rather ominous way to start
our public lives. Check that. It plain sucked.

To make my day suck a little less, I
entertained the idea of ratting Ash out to the cops. I entertained
the piss out of this idea. But ratting him out would probably end
up with all of us being shuffled back to the Home—indefinitely—and
that would suck even worse than starting out as outcasts in
Philicity High. No, I would grin and bear whatever was coming.

And besides, I could always snitch on Ash
later. This gleaming thought would see me through.

As we pulled away, I popped a B-drop (a
butterscotch candy coated in caramelized doojee) and took one last
glance at Lincoln Park. I did not see the Hunter, but, just for a
tick, I could’ve sworn I saw something much larger lurking beneath
the trees across from the wrought iron gate, watching us.

As I enjoyed my B-drop, I wondered for the
umpteenth time why the government had finally decided to release
us. ‘What the heck has changed?’ we’d all asked after Mr. Monmouth,
Director of the Home, had made the announcement of our
relocation.

Our Official-Super-Deluxe-Police escort
pulled into the driveway in front of the school. While the van
lurched and we all attempted to recover, I thought about the rumors
Ash had wheedled out of Mr. Bors: The Mythcorp War ended fifteen
years ago after some CLASSIFIED dude finally buggered the President
of Mythcorp, who—Mr. Bors explained during the prolonged Mesmer—was
being harassed by this CLASSIFIED dude. True or not, these rumors
still failed to explain the ‘What’s changed?’ part. Why had it
taken fifteen years for the government to decide the baddie and us
second generation Mythcorp products were no longer a threat?

“
Do you think they’ll like us?” Galahad
asked beside me on the transport, his legs jittering.

“
I’m sure they’ll like
you
, G,” elbowing him. “And if anyone
gives you lip, just yank it down and stomp on it.” With that, we
exited the police van.

I called him G because pronouncing his funky
name always seemed strange to me. Like the other Morai, Galahad had
been christened by a quantum computer called Glaston. The noodle in
a network of cams and mics in the Home (to keep us freaks under
wraps), Glaston had a hard-on for the Arthurian legend, so the
Morai were forced to endure funky monikers. My own wouldn’t really
be considered funky—if I were a girl.

The school rose before us, three
stories of blue brick. Foot-wide brick columns lined the front. Set
into the foundation blocks were filmed-over basement windows,
giving the school a slightly sleepy vibe. Officers herded my fellow
orphans towards the staircase that rose in the center like a
warning:
Don’t tread on me, I’ll chew you
up and spit you out
.

Ash was in the front, practically guiding our
gun-toting shepherds. Such a douche. While striding up the steps,
backpack weighing me down, I heard Pellinore saying “You boys see
that? In the window there,” pointing. Pellinore has the shiftiest
peepers of the Morai, always darting around.

“
See what?” Galahad asked. His whites
were busy scanning the basement windows.

“
A beastie,” Pellinore answered. “Right
there, just watching us. You boys saw it, right? It was just
staring, like it was hunting or something.” Pells always calls us
‘boys’, as if he’s a man. He hasn’t even hit his growth
spurt.

“
Just ignore him,” I whispered to
Galahad. A tall officer stepped through the doors, while two others
held them open for us. They were careful not to touch us. They were
anal not to look into our peepers. The officer up front procured
his badge for the Iconocops guarding the metal detectors. Back at
the Home they’d told us about these dudes. Supposedly offered huge
salaries to come out of retirement to babysit us, three Iconocops
had been stationed here in Philicity High. It was the one
contingent of the Zoners not boycotting our release. And these
Iconocops were not afraid to glare into our peepers. They wore
specially designed colored lenses called chem-shades, and were
trained long ago to handle our kind: Mythicons, Morai, Icons, each
and every product Mythcorp had ever forged.

But then, we were not Mythcorp products, not
exactly. We were second generation.

A little dickering, a few laughs and we were
through. Thirteen orphans wading in an ocean of blue tiles, police
escorts aft, guards astern. The youngest Iconocop, a man who
couldn’t be a wrinkle under fifty-five, stepped before us. His
faded, distinctive blue and yellow uniform, with its
Kevlar-reinforced coverlets and the sick-stick strapped to his
thigh, seemed a bit gauche, but who was I to say?

“
All right, boys,” he paused while
focusing on Ava. No doubt he was trying to decipher her gender.
It’s probably difficult for normal’s to tell the difference between
male and female Morai. The androgynous bodies, long white locks
worn by guys and girls, and the soft features make for negligible
distinctions. “And girl,” he deduced. Perhaps it was Ava’s maturing
chest that gave her away. I checked to decide for
myself.

Yup. Can anyone say blossoming?

“
My name is Wes. I’ll be keeping an eye
on you during your stay here, however short that may be.” Wes
checked his watch every few ticks while speaking. Was he nervous? I
hoped not. Nervous, armed dudes were hazardous to our
health.

‘
Jeez Louise,’ Marie said. I barely
flinched this time. Fifteen years of enduring her sudden
appearances might finally be paying off. ‘Is that . . . yeah, I
know that guy. But he’s so old.’

“
Really?” I asked before I could stop
myself. Gareth and Galahad looked at me like I was mad. Only Ava
was privy to the knowledge of my spook problem. I lowered my voice.
“Later, Marie.”

“
Go to your classes,” Wes was saying,
“do your homework—or rather, school work,” he checked his watch
again. “Stay out of trouble and we’ll get along just fine. Curfew’s
at three, every night. Now—” looking around as if expecting trouble
“—where is he?”

“
Um, sir?” Pells said. “Do you know if
the rumors about the Mythcorp chimera are true? Did it really
escape back in Twenty-Fifteen and—”

Wes held up a hand. Pells fell silent. “You
are not to mention that corporation or anything associated with
that corporation.”

“
Does that mean we can’t talk about
ourselves—or you?” I asked, earning a few laughs.

Wes strolled towards us. The others parted,
leaving me the only one in his path. Jerks. Wes bore down on me,
his gait crooked, as if he’d been shot in the leg, his head cocked
slightly to the right. I couldn’t see his peepers behind the
chem-shades, but I could see the fingers of his left hand wrapping
around the sick-stick, ready to yank it out if I provoked him.

I considered provoking him. Such an act would
make me a total badass.

Wes stopped when he was only two feet away.
We were the same height, but he had at least sixty pounds on me,
and who knew how much experience. He might have been one of the
dudes to have hunted our parents during the Purge.

“
You the smart mouth of the group?” he
asked. I didn’t think it was a question. “You know what we used to
do with smart mouths?”

“
Clone them?”

SMACK! His callused hand wracked my head to
the left. Ears rang as I massaged my cheek. Ava gasped and Galahad
shuttered behind me. Were they really allowed to hit us?

Wes scrutinized me as I stood up straight and
lowered my hand. He stroked his chin. “You remind me of someone . .
.” The way he said it, I didn’t think this someone had been a
friend.

“
Ahem,” a deep-voice behind Wes. “Mr.
Dodds, right?”

Wes turned from me. He raised his right arm,
tapped his watch. “You’re late, Mr. Frigg. Watch the smart-ass
here,” meaning me, of course. True, maybe, but still better than
being a dumb-ass. Wes limped away down the hall.

“
Looks like you’re making friends
already,” Ava tittered in my ear.

“
Not my fault the guy’s a total
zipperdick,” I retorted. I was about to march up to this Frigg
fellow, a brother whose well-developed muscles seemed uncomfortably
at odds with his baby-face, when Ash c-blocked me. With his hands
clasped before him, he nodded in mockery of a bow.

“
My name is Ash. It’s a pleasure to
meet you, Mr. Frigg.”

What. A. Clown.

“
What a clown,” Ava sneered. She’s very
smart.

“
Yeah,” Frigg said. “Call me Damien.
Come on.” He waved an oversized hand and we followed him down the
hall, Ash first. Damien didn’t bother with the tour guide
shtick.

We were trailing the silent muscle-head
around the corner at the end of the hall, when the doors burst open
behind us and students started marching single file though the
metal detectors. They were all forced to deposit their FAD’s and
other devices into small numbered lockers behind the Iconocops.

Metal detectors. I wondered if guns were as
dangerous as letting Morai enter the school.

At the corner near the end of this hall, a
few feet to the right of an exit door was a concrete staircase
seven feet wide. To the right of this staircase, partitioned by a
wall, was another stairway, this one three feet wide. Damien led us
up this narrower staircase. At the top he stopped, dug a key out of
his jeans front pocket. He slid the bugger into the lock, wriggled
it until the lock clicked. He shoved and then stared at the
thirteen of us waiting on the steps.

“
Your . . . apartment,” he procured a
big gushy smile that made me think of a shark.

Ash was the first inside after Damien. I had
to nudge my way past Pells, who was busy scanning the hall behind
us. “Hey boys, did you hear that? I think it was something
breathing. Something big.”

“
Get off it,” Lot retorted.

Pellinore seemed ready to descend to go
questing after his imaginary beastie, but Gareth grabbed his
shoulder and spun him around. “Relax, Pells, it’s just some
fatty-patty’s.”

I turned. Sure enough a group of seven or
eight students, including two fat boys, was rounding the
corner.

A red-headed chick, kind of hot with a busy
cluster of dark brown freckles, noticed us first. She stopped the
others and uttered something too low to be heard. They stood
staring up at us.

“
Well,” Gareth said after a tick, “I
feel like a horses butt.”

“
You look like a horses butt,” Ava
pointed out. “Come on. Let’s check out our new digs.”

I felt only a smidgen of guilt for realizing
that the students had barely noticed me. I may have the Morai gift,
but I look normal—pretty much.

Leaving the gawkers behind, we climbed the
last few steps and crossed the threshold into our new digs. “Holy
crap,” Ava burst. “What’s that nasty stench? Smells like a dead pig
barfed up a dead skunk.” The others were echoing her
sentiments—only in less colorful terms.

“
Yeah, that would be the formaldehyde,”
Damien informed us. “Last year the PUP’s—Parents for Unsung
Professions—forced the school to offer undertaker classes, and
there was an accident.” He snorted, ran his hand over his shaved
scalp and headed for the door. “Classes start at eight. Your
schedules are over there.” At the door he turned and procured his
shark smile. “Good luck, mofo’s.”

With the sound of hundreds of feet rumbling
below us, we began examining the upper room that previously
processed corpses. Folded cots lined one wall. They looked like
giant lint catchers with all the dust on them.

“
Charming,” Lot sneered.

Dong-Dong. A grandfather clock embraced by
layers of cobwebs sprang to life in the corner. Dust motes puffed
from its interior as it gonged. Three ticks later the infinitely
louder school bell chimed. It was, without a doubt, the most
macabre sound in the world. A stampede below as everyone scrambled
for homeroom. Ash marched over to a wooden stand, grabbed our
schedules.

“
Okay, I got Gareth’s here, ah,
Lamorak, Galahad, Pells . . . Where’s Pellinore?”

“
Who knows,” Ava shrugged. “But we got
to go. I doubt they’ll be lenient on us our first day.” She swiped
her schedule out of Ash’s hand and skipped down the stairs. I
grabbed my own schedule and followed her, sans the skipping,
relieved to discover that the sheet boasted a map of the school on
the back.

Ash followed me down the steps and out into
the rapidly emptying hallway. “Room Fourteen, Mr. Bick?”

“
Yeah,” I sighed. Just great, we were
in the same homeroom. As we approached it in the nearly empty hall,
I turned to Ash. “So what did that kook say to you out at Lincoln
Park?”

“
Huh? Oh, nothing, he just wanted to
know why we were being transported. Better hurry.”

“
Right,” I whispered to myself. Why the
heck would Ash lie about what the Hunter said?

With Ash, Lamorak and Gareth in the same
homeroom, I received only cursory glances and a single goggle from
a girl who had obviously undergone the Change early. I returned her
goggle. Probably mine came off as creepy, because after delivering
it, the girl gave me a dirty look.

“
All right class, settle down,” Mr.
Bick said. “Adam, stop staring at our new students. Eyes up front,
people.” And then Mr. Bick did what I’d been dreading since Mr.
Monmouth told us we would be coming here: he began to read off from
the attendance sheet.