Orphan of Mythcorp (6 page)

“
Did they ever mention the building
itself?” looking at me with those blazing white eyes.

“—
put forth the First Law of Theorics?”
Mr. Pribeck asked Ash. “Oh I’m sorry, am I interrupting something?
Because I can wait until you and Mr. Sanson are
finished.”

“
That won’t be necessary, but thank you
all the same,” Ash turned his head only long enough to direct his
piercing gaze onto Mr. Pribeck and to utter the words: “The answer
is T.M. Wilson, in 2018. Now ask me if Wilson was a homophobe and a
Zoner.” His gaze did not waver from Mr. Pribecks’.

Everyone was silent. Even the birds outside
the window had stopped their annoying twittering. A few guys were
avoiding Ash’s stare, while others—most of the girls—seemed to find
Ash riveting.

He blinked and turned back to face me. Poor
Mr. Pribeck slumped against the chalkboard as though he’d just been
released from chains. After fixing his glasses and recovering, he
resumed teaching. As if nothing had happened. The girls who had
been eye-screwed by Ash seemed hardly capable of paying attention
to Mr. Pribeck, while the smarty-pants who’d avoided his peepers
glanced around the room, fury or maybe fear written on their
faces.

“
Sorry about that interruption,” Ash
said to me. “Did your folks ever mention anything about the
safeguards the government put into place to keep people out of
Mythcorp?”

“
Ah,” I muttered. “I think my dad once
said something about some gangbangers being stationed on the
rooftops surrounding the building. Something about poison
darts.”

The thermo on my left wrist, designed to
monitor my body temp, started beeping. After awhile the nanites
swimming around inside my body break down; some crap about their
vulnerability to gastric acids. So eventually they wear out, need
replacing. Why hadn’t Dr. Wilmut drained my gastric acids? I don’t
know. I’m not a freaking doctor.

I took a swig of Nanex and the thermo stopped
whining, but my body temp only went up to 62 degrees—still a bit
low. If the Nanex didn’t raise it up to room temperature soon, I’d
have to give myself a hyposhot of nanites. That’s always fun.

“
Are you okay? Should we take you to
the nurse?”Ash asked.

I leaned in close to him. “I’m fine. Just a
little deader than usual.” To distract him I added, “The Goth
chicks are staring at you.”

He turned around. Lexi and Misty and Missy
smiled when he caught them. He returned their smiles with a “You
should pay attention to what Mr. Pribeck is saying.” Ash looked at
me before swiveling back to face the girls. “For now.”

They giggled and obeyed.

Ash wore a thoughtful expression for a few
minutes as Mr. Pribeck droned on. Then, just as I was considering
removing the hypospray gun from my bag, Ash turned to me. “Listen,
I need you to get me the blueprints on Mythcorp Tower from the city
record office. I checked, and they must’ve been deleted from the
web. But the hard copies might still exist.”

“
You’re insane,” I quipped. Mr. Pribeck
looked at us, snatched his gaze away, an expression of guilt on his
face. “Listen,” I whispered, “even if those blueprints do still
exist, which I doubt, they’re not just going to hand them over to
some high school punk just because I ask for them.”

Not very bright, these Morai.

“
Who said anything about asking?” he
almost sounded impatient. “You’ll be going at night.”

“
Oh I will, will I? Listen, just
because you can dupe a few Goths and a teacher or two, don’t mean
you can make me do any idjit thing happens to pop into your little
white skull. I think you’ve got those braids wrapped a bit too
snuggly around your head.”

I expected a retort, or at least a dirty
look. Instead I got the opposite.

“
Of course you’re right,” Ash breathed.
“I apologize for assuming I could get you to do whatever I wanted.
Obviously you are not a simpleton.”

Sometimes I had to remind myself this guy
wasn’t any older than me. He could speak with such maturity you’d
think he was a fifty-year old philosophy professor—a tiny one.
“Forget it, it’s cool.” Did he just dupe me into forgiving him?

Later, as we were leaving class, the guys
who’d patently ignored Ash made every effort to steer clear of him.
One yahoo, Manny Kant, even went so far as to race through the door
before Ash could even stand. But not everyone was so careful. The
Goths shadowed us, and Damien, the beefcake, actually stopped him
in the hall.

“
Yo Ash,” he began. Then, noticing me,
he nodded and said “S’up zombie?” before turning back to Ash. “Me
and my boys been wanting to axe you a question.” He paused for
dramatic effect. “The hell went down with Mrs. Deem?” He towered
over Ash, could probably hoist Ash by his boxers with one arm. “And
don’t even try that Morai bullcrap on me.”

To his credit, Damien did not flinch from
Ash’s gaze. Craning his neck to look up at Damien, Ash answered,
his voice barely registering over the clamor in the hall, “I merely
pointed out to Mrs. Deem the inherent foolishness in—”

Damien slapped him! “Yo, Powder, don’t try to
play me.” Damien is not the kind of guy you try to swindle.

Ash nodded, infinitely patient. A crowd had
begun to knot around us. For two days the debate about Mrs. Deem’s
possible Mesmer had raged. Everyone wanted to know the truth and
here was their chance. Damien Frigg was about to rip the truth out
of Ash.

My dang thermo started wailing again, ripping
attention away from Ash’s crowd. I yanked the black plastic case
out my bag, clicked it open, and removed the hypospray gun.
Pin-dropping silence as everyone gawked at the zombie. Just
frigging awesome. I drew a vial out from plush cushion, snapped it
into place on the gun and pressed the nozzle to undead flesh.

I pulled the trigger. A faint whoosh and the
fresh nanites were injected hypodermically.

I didn’t feel a thing.

Thirty seconds went by, no sounds but the
beeping of my thermo. Then, slowly, the digital readout climbed
from 61 degrees up to 68. Safe again. Good thing too; I’d hate to
have to go toes up in front of the entire school. The worst part
would be the fact that the nanites in my brain would continue
firing neurons and synapses long after rigor mortis. I would, in
effect, be able to watch myself die.

I raised my hands to the slack-jawed gawkers.
“It’s all right. I’ll die to live another day.” No one laughed. I
thought it was pretty funny. Through my teeth I whispered to Ash,
“Help me out here?”

He placed his hand on Damien’s arm and looked
up at him. “I did not Mesmerize Mrs. Deem. She is smart enough to
concede her opinion to a point well made. The man who ran
Mythcorp—” a collective gasp “—was misguided. Overly ambitious. But
Mythcorp’s premise, to bring to life our greatest tales of fantasy,
to provide the world with a meta-human policing force, and to
replace lost love ones with clones, was sound and noble, and
something worth doing. It is still worth doing.”

“
Dat’s cool,” Damien shrugged. He
seemed ready to take off. Something brought him up
short.

“
What’s going on here?” Wes Dodds
asked. His head swiveled from Ash to Damien.

“
Nothing’s up,
sir
,” Damien said. He started to walk away. Wes
grabbed him by the arm. Damien stopped, his eyes slowly going from
the uninvited hand on his shoulder, up to the blank face of Wes.
“You want to let go of me.”

Wes paused before releasing Damien. As he was
walking away, I noticed Damien fingering something in the pocket of
his black cargo jeans; his smokes, most likely. At the edge of the
crowd he shoved passed Morgan, who turned, spoke to Damien, and
then followed the beefcake down the hall to the bathrooms. Probably
to shoot up or do lines.

Wes had turned his attention to Ash now.
Leaning down to meet the Morai face to face, he scowled. “What’s
going on here? And don’t lie.”

“
Nothing sir,” Ash sounded innocent as
always. “Just clearing something up for Damien.”

With maybe 60-70 people around us, and with
the Iconocop staring down the Morai, I was glad for once that I
couldn’t sense heat. It must’ve been 85 degrees.

Ash staring down Wes. Something had to give.
I was packing up my hypo-gun when it gave.

“
Drop your eyes, Morai.” Wes’s lips
barely moved as he spoke. “Drop them now. You will not pull your
voodoo on me.”

Ash looked away, his gift no doubt blocked by
Wes’s shades. But he also made the mistake of saying, “I would not
presume, Mister Dodds.” Ash barely had time to finish his lie
before the Iconocop grabbed his shoulders, wrenched him around and
started dragging him through the crowd of yahoos.

“
Don’t you all have classes to get to?”
he growled, sending everyone skittering away.

In Theorics class the next day Ash’s usually
ashen cheeks sported a rosy color. He was silent and so I didn’t
ask about it. The answer was kind of obvious anyway. Those
Iconocops meant business. Mr. Pribeck was blathering on about the
Third Law of Theorics, proclaiming the wisdom in questioning every
act of a dictator. According to the Third Law, a dictator remains
in power only so long as the people allow him to; dictatorships
only ever exist because the people permit them to.

That’s Theorics, politics according to
Psychiatrists.

Every so often Mr. Pribeck glanced back
towards Ash; whether to seek approval or because he thought Ash
might have something to add, I couldn’t tell.

The little munchkin looked so dang gloomy. I
had to do something. Couldn’t just leave him like this, he might
never complete his plans, which meant I’d never get my curse
lifted. I leaned towards him, just knowing I’d regret it. “Hey Ash,
hey, why did you want those blueprints so badly?”

He perked up. Even the dash of rose on his
cheek seemed to lighten to its usual ghostly pallor. “I need them
to help me find a way inside.” He lowered his voice so only I could
hear him. “There is something inside Mythcorp that will help me
lift your curse.” He could have gone on, but he must’ve known he
had me.

We both leaned back in our chairs.
Metal groaned. The Goths were taking notes, following Mr. Pribeck’s
every word, just as Ash had told them to.
I
am not Mesmerized,
I told myself,
this is just the way to get my curse lifted. I am doing this
because I choose to.

The Morai were going to make us all
paranoid.

I leaned over and whispered, “All
right, I’m in. But I’ve never broken in anywhere before, and
no one
has ever broken into
Mythcorp.”

His pencil-thin lips curled upward. “That’s
okay. Just be there at the city records building at eleven o’clock
tomorrow night. You’ll have help.”

“
If someone’s going to break in for me,
why do I got to be there?”

“
You can come and go as you please,”
Ash answered. “I cannot, and the one who is going to help you break
in, can’t enter the school.” He turned his head to look at me with
those terrible eyes. “Thank you.”

My thermo-watch read 63 degrees; I couldn’t
feel it, but I’d just gotten a chill.

“
What’s going on now?” Seventh period
had just ended and Ava was walking beside me down the hall toward
Camelot. Camelot sounds a lot better than ‘the former
dead-people-apartment.’

“
No idea,” I answered. “But I bet it’s
got something to do with Ash.”

Ava snorted. Even a Porky-Pig noise sounds
alluring when it comes from her. “You know, you’ve developed a very
immature attitude when it comes to Ash,” she said.

“
Nah-uh,” I mocked as we neared the
edge of the growing crowd. “Okay, maybe I have, but I will bet you
two-hundred dollars Ash is smack in the middle of whatever’s going
down here.” I had to stop and walk in a circle, as Marie had popped
into existence before me. I could’ve just ghosted right through
her, sure, but my flesh tingles and the air takes on a decidedly
Antarctic feel whenever I spook-walk.

“
You’re on,” Ava smirked.

She was standing on her tippy-toes, trying to
see over a few dozen heads. So cute. I thought about suggesting
that she climb on my shoulders, but since Marie was currently
haunting me, I had a better—though less pleasurable—idea.

“
Marie, go sneak up there and see what
this is all about.”

Ava followed my eyes carefully, as she always
does whenever she knows one of my spooks is around, as if she hopes
to catch a glimpse. I wondered if she’d enjoy a gander at Naked
Charlie.

Marie, twirling through the students, made
her way to the lockers. A few ticks later Wes the Iconocop came
marching down the hall, heading my way. I hobbled to the left,
guiding Ava with me. Wes shoved his way into the grouping just as
Marie was hopping out. She danced her way straight through Wes, who
paused as though chilled, before continuing like a man on a
mission.

“
Oh man,” Galahad appeared beside us.
“Looks like a tussle, huh?”

“
Yeah, and I’m about to make
two-hundred bucks,” I boasted.

Ava smacked my shoulder. “I didn’t say I’d
pay up if you were right.”

“
Oh.” Just then Marie glided up to me.
She hopped around like she was performing the Swan, but did not
tell me what was going on. “Hey, Marie, what’s the 411?”

‘
Hmm?’

“
Who’s causing the ruckus?”