Orphan of Mythcorp (20 page)

“
Why? What’s better?”

“
Because you and I have work to do.” He
nodded at Mr. Wanksman, who clicked on the screen and started
class. When Ash spoke to me again, he didn’t even bother lowering
his voice. He was in charge and what was anyone going to say?
Shoot, he’d mesmerized the teacher and half the yahoos in here.
“How’d you do with Lexi?”

I laid it out for him, expecting a sigh or
perhaps a long groan.

He was silent for a while, then nodded. I
could almost see brilliant, sinister ideas formulating inside his
bobble-head. He leaned over to me. “It seems we have more work to
do than I thought.”

Ash looked ready to continue, but I happened
to raise my eyes just then and nearly jerked back in surprise. The
Iconocop Mentkowski was standing in the doorway, his chem-shades
aimed at us. Ash turned around to see what had spooked me. He
slumped in his seat and sighed. “This isn’t going to be
pretty.”

Mentkowski’s head cocked. Now his chem-shades
were directed at Jewel. He knocked on the door and entered. “Mr.
Wanksman, I need to borrow Ash.”

Our teacher lowered his right hand, which he
had been using to control the remote, and faced the Iconocop. “What
do you need him for?”

Mentkowski paused, ground his teeth and then
stepped up to Mr. Wanksman. Mentkowski was a beefy black man, short
but built like a fridge, making our teacher look like a stick
figure. “I’m going to pretend I don’t know that you’ve been
Mesmerized. Because if I do know that you’ve been Mesmerized, I’ll
have to fill out the appropriate paperwork, send it down to my
bosses in DC, who’ll have to send it up the bureaucratic ladder,
and that’s just a big ole pain in my ass. So,” he clapped
Mentkowski on his shoulder, “here’s what’s going to happen. I’m
going to take that little freaky albino out of your classroom and
you’re not going to say boo.”

“
I’m sorry,” Mr. Wanksman was shaking,
as if he were resisting some impulse (which he probably was). “I
can’t let you do that.”

Mentkowski lurched at our teacher, raising a
fist.

“
It’s all right, Peter,” Ash stood up.
“I’ll go with Mr. Mentkowski. He just wants to talk. Isn’t that
right, Mr. Mentkowski?” But as he crossed to the front of the room,
the Iconocop did not agree or even nod.

Iconocop and Morai walked out of the
classroom.

Ash didn’t show for the next three classes.
Assuming he was being honest about rearranging our schedules to
match, this was disconcerting news.

Eighth period Politics was dragging on, Mrs.
Philby driveling about the United House of Representatives, when
Ash knocked on the door and stumbled in. He limped over to the seat
behind me. His hands were folded before him as usual, but he was
obviously in pain. His little half-step hitches reminded me of an
old flick showing a chain-gang shuffling along to their cells.

“
What happened, what did he do to you?”
I whispered.

A pause, and then Ash said: “As much as he
could.”

Through the remainder of Politics class I
tried not to imagine what Mentkowski may or may not have done to
Ash. The way he’d limped into class, it could’ve been anything from
a paddle-spanking to fudge-packing. The desire to placate him by
doing whatever he wanted me to do was strengthened by these nasty
imaginings.

Which made me wonder:
Was that his plan?
Maybe he was
manipulating me. Maybe he’d
been
playing it up since we first spoke. Who knew what the Morai
were capable of?

After class he hobbled after me to my locker.
“You want to hit pause on the whole ‘let’s-set-up-a-conference’
thing?” I asked. Seeing him leaning against the locker beside mine,
I added, “Give you some time to rest? You look like a ghost,
man.”

“
No,” he said, peering in my eyes as
usual. “In fact, we need to speed things up. Start
today.”

“
What? Why, what’s the
rush?”

He looked around like he was afraid we were
being overheard. I exchanged my Politics text for Theorics, waiting
for Ash. I was ready to turn and leave when Lamorak and Agravaine
appeared behind him. “You okay?” Lamorak asked Ash.

“
Yeah,” Ash made an effort to stand
straight—and groaned. “Mentkowski’s bark is bigger than his bite. A
smidge bit anyway.” Quiet Morai titters followed. “You have
them?”

Agravaine, the largest of the Morai and the
only one who doesn’t look like he’s courting anorexia, handed Ash a
sheaf of papers. Forms of some kind by the glimpse I got of
them.

“
Dynamite.” He looked up at me, and so
did the other two Morai. Once again I felt the urge to thank
someone that I was immune to their mesmerizing eyes. “Lamorak and
Agravaine are going to help me convince the teachers to sign
these.”

“
Forms to organize a parent-teacher
conference?”

“
Exactly,” he nodded. “After ninth
period Lamorak will find you, hand these to you, all signed, and
then you will take them to Principal Steck and convince him to sign
off on them.” He paused to grimace. “Once he does, you’ll meet
Nimrod outside, by the work shed. He’ll give you—”

“
Whoa, hold up,” I interrupted. We all
waited as George the Iconocop walked by, giving us all a long look.
I couldn’t see his eyes behind his chem-shades, but I was pretty
sure they were scrunched. “What makes you think Principal Steck
will listen to me?” I continued. “Why don’t you just pull your Jedi
mind tricks on
him
?”

“
One of the Iconocops’ rules,”
Agravaine growled. I almost stepped back when I heard his deep
voice, so different from the rest of the Morai. “They won’t let us
alone with the Principal.”

“
Exactly,” Ash said. “But you can skim
some time with him, whiz-bang like. No problem.”

“
Yeah, maybe. But what the flip am I
supposed to say?”

While Lamorak scowled at me, Ash smiled.
“Tell him you heard that a number of parents have been considering
removing their kids from school, away from us kooky Morai.”

I stepped back. “Huhn. Principal Steck might
actually believe that. Shoot, it’s probably true.” All three pairs
of eyes focused on something behind me. Ash reached up to my
shoulder, plucked something from my shirt.

“
It seems you have an
enemy.”

I took the spitball from him. I wouldn’t even
have known about it if Ash hadn’t noticed; one of the many side
effects of not having sensation. Ash nodded at Lamorak, who trod
down the hall after the culprit of the walk-by-spitballing.

Ninety minutes later, as I was approaching my
locker after ninth period, Lamorak appeared in front of me. He
handed me two dozen or so forms, all filled out, signed and dated,
then walked away without a word.

I checked the date of the
conference-in-waiting. The Morai had scheduled it for Wednesday,
two days away
. What’s the rush?
As I huffed and headed for Principal Steck’s office, I
wondered how many schedules had been ruined thanks to Ash’s
impatience to meet this senator. What else would be ruined by the
time Ash was through with me and us and them?

The main office was filled with yahoos
whining about their schedules. Talking with Principal Steck in the
back was Wes Dodds. While fiddling with my papers to look
preoccupied, I strained to hear what they were saying. Apparently
they were discussing the appropriate punishment for Morgan, should
he ever return from his escape. Principal Steck was pointing out
that he didn’t care what the Iconocops did, ‘just so long as it
isn’t done on school property.’

I shuffled past the whiny yahoos over to the
chair designated for waiting. The Vice Principal noticed me ten
seconds later and, no doubt impressed by my calm demeanor, walked
over to hear what I had to say. “I need Principal Steck to sign
something for my folks,” I explained.

“
Okay dear,” the nice old lady said.
“Why don’t you wait in his office? I’ll let him know.”

“
Thank you.”
Hmm
, I thought,
maybe
there is something to this good manner crap after all. Maybe Ash
isn’t as daft as he seems.

Roll ahead five minutes: Principal Steck
invited me into his office. I spewed my rehearsed lie and mentioned
how I thought this conference would prevent a student exodus. He
nodded, looked over the teacher signatures, and added his John
Hancock to the fold with an “I’ll make the calls,” promise.

Feeling pretty darn smug, I practically
danced out of his office—and ran smack into Wes Dodds’ chest.
“Umph.”

He grabbed my shoulders; his hands lingered.
I was glad I couldn’t feel them there; he was probably squeezing in
a vain attempt to hurt me. “What kind of BS were you trying to pull
on Jim in there, huh? Something about giving the Morai more
freedom, maybe? Don’t pretend I don’t know. I’ve seen you. You’ve
been spending a lot of time with them manfacs. They’ve got you
mind-screwed.”

“
Ah, actually, they
can’t
mesmerize me. I was talking to Principal
Steck for
me
.”

“
That’s how it works,” he whispered
with a knowing grin. “They make you think it was your idea, and
then, when things go to put, you take the fall. So, what are you
going to go down for, Sanson?”

I shrugged out of his grasp and tried to
steer around him. He sidestepped and blocked me. I sighed. “Why
don’t you go in there and ask ‘Jim’ what’s what? I need to go, I
got to be someplace.” I regretted the words as soon as they jumped
out of my mouth.

“
You ‘got to be someplace?’” He was
blocking my sight of the office, but I could hear that most of the
yahoos had fled during my talk with Mr. Steck. So I was pretty much
alone with this huge angry dude and his sick-stick and breath that
could wither roses. “Where do you ‘got to be?’”

“
My dad is taking me straight to Dr.
Wilmut’s office to pick up another case of nanites.”

Nice.

Wes Dodds stood like a statue. I could only
assume he was giving me the evil eye; those chem-shades he never
takes off completely concealed his eyes, neutralizing any possible
evil-eye. At last he stepped aside and let me pass.

What were the odds he was going to follow me
as I went to meet Nimrod?

Being laid up for a day with a bum knee and a
totally buggered torso isn’t so bad, not when you’ve got a bottle
of dynamite painkillers and three manuscripts explaining everything
you never knew you wanted to know. The first script from Dex was
titled ICONOCOP. It had nothing to do with me except that it was
all about my father.

Apparently Solomon Knox had been the kind of
guy who did bad things for the right reasons—occasionally. The blow
of discovering my father was not the hero I imagined him to be was
softened by the glorious morphine. Also helping was the fact that
ICONOCOP revealed the origin of Kana, Faustus and even Marie, back
when she had a pulse.

I’d downed a few pills by the time I finished
reading the second manuscript, MYTHICON. So my memory of that tale
might be somewhat muddled: It was all about Knox’s quest to kill
Alexander (Alexander being the megalomaniacal Icon who had
manipulated and murdered his way into becoming the President of
Mythcorp). Turned out this Alexander had created the original Morai
and used them to Mesmerize the leaders of the free world into
signing some sham treaty designed to give him control of their
militaries. Oh, and Alexander had commissioned the creation of
Nimrod and given the Hunter the mission of executing Knox and his
friends. I was starting to understand my father’s obsession with
destroying this guy.

I don’t know if it was the shoddy forty watt
bulbs hanging over my head, or the pills I’d gorged, but my gut was
rumbling and I could feel a puke escapade coming on.

‘
Someone’s coming up the stairs,’ Marie
warned, dancing away from the door.

“
Oh man,” I clutched my stomach.
Seconds later someone knocked. All the Morai were at their classes,
so it was up to me to play butler. I groaned to my feet, clutching
my gut with one hand, leaning on my old man’s old cane with the
other. “Just shove on it, it’ll give,” I yelled. Didn’t want to
wander too far from the bathroom, which was about fifteen feet from
my cot.

More knocking. ‘Hey Kurt Kobain,’ Castor
said, ‘I think you better get the door.’

I had no idea who he was talking about. Most
of his references are like that—old school.

“
Just shove on the frigging
thing!”

More knocking.

“
Dang it all.” I shuffled forward,
ready to give an earful to whoever was on the other side of the
door. I reached for the knob, hesitated at the memory of Naked
Charlie’s appearance here, and then yanked on it. “Why didn’t you
shove like I . . . oh, hey Izzy. What’s going on?”

The lovely dwarf pushed past me and started
checking out Camelot with focused peepers. She then turned her gaze
on me, swiveling on the tiniest crutch you ever saw. It gave me a
rush to see that I wasn’t the only cripple at PHS. Izzy noticed my
gut-clutching.

“
God, you’re almost as pale as your
Morai buddies.”

My stomach clenched. It felt like a capuchin
was doing loopedy-loops inside. My hands zipped from stomach up to
my mouth. I raced for the toilet. After heaving and groaning and
spewing my guts all over the place, I gulped some funky-tasting
sink water and stumbled out of the bathroom.