They love to torture fresh meat here.

When I’d first come to Arkham mid semester last year I was the freshest of meat of all.

It was a few weeks after the Peace Summit and Ma had taken the train up with me and left me in Hotako’s hands personally to make sure I didn’t bail.  

As 9th graders we were already the youngest class in the Upper School. To add insult to injury I was also the new kid. All my classmates  were brainstorming the ways they were going to torture me before I even stepped into class. And then  I gave them the perfect target.

I glitched on my very first day

Some asshole saw my cybernetic leg and thinking it was just a prosthetic started sticking magnets to it during lunch. But unlike a prosthetic,  my leg isn’t just there to help me walk. It helps me function--it’s connected to all the programming keeping my body running and magnets really mess that up.

I told him to quit and he didn’t so I kicked him and his friends piled on me. One of them must have knocked something out because my insides went haywire. The audioclips that got stuck in my head sometimes played at this demonic pace, my vision got tricky and my body forgot how to breath normal. I couldn’t operate and my bioengineering programs couldn’t sort out the cybernetics from my biology. I knew the digital  error was showing in my pupils and I must have looked like a freak.

The lunch monitor on duty was useless--I'm pretty sure she was just staring at me for a solid minute until I heard the groan off all the boys who piled on me being subdued by their minders.

Hotako was called  and he had to restart me using the shut down in the back of my neck. I hated being shut down because unlike hibernation it meant my entire body shut down--not just the cybernetic parts. Only my vital needs stayed functioning and it always took a few days for me to re-remember how to use everything after being re-started again.

Once everyone saw me glitch and  knew I was a cyborg it became a game for the other students to figure out how much of my body was real and how much was cybernetic. Only my leg outwardly looked cybernetic but they were relentless with the teasing. On the worst day a pair of idiots had cornered me when I was leaving the shower to pull my towel down. It was almost lights out  and the shower was full of other boys, but no one intervened because the other boys were just thankful they’d settled in the middle of the pack.

I hadn’t told an adult  because I didn’t want to and most of them figured I could take it.

Which I could.

My body was resilient as I was.

So when New Girl shoves me into the water, after I saved her ugly piece of crap jewelry, my system knows something wasn’t right and it goes into a modified hibernation where it shuts itself down but also knocks me out so I won’t take up as much oxygen. I must submerge but at some point my system floats my body back to the top of the Amphitheater Lake and when I was dried out enough the whole thing restarts.  

When that all finally happens, and I wake up, it’s the dead of night.

I’d missed dinner and curfew and  I resolve never to help anyone again.

“Luce ?,” Mrs. Perry asks

The homeroom teacher is staring at me expectantly.

We were sitting in a circle in homeroom listening to everyone’s proposed ideas for the sophomore project. We were supposed to be offering feedback and suggestions to each other.  I’d zoned out when this toddler-sized girl  next to me started blabbing about using post modern architecture techniques in reclaimed cities of the north.

I knew the girl from a speech class I took last year and  she could blather go on and on about architecture if no one stopped her.

“Oh, I haven’t decided what I want to study,” I tell Mrs.Perry.

“Robot pussy,” someone snickers.

A few people laugh and Mrs. Perry narrows her eyes.

“Well, give us your options and we can provide feedback,” Mrs. Perry smiles.

I knew the other students  weren’t going to do give me feedback  no matter what I said.

“Well,” I start. “I like the idea of looking at the military.”

The teacher nods her head enthusiastically.

“That’s not a thesis,” someone balks.

“That’s so unfocused and lower school,” someone else adds

“Okay, boys, but let’s give Mr. Grace  better feedback,” the Mrs. Perry says. “Let’s help Mr. Grace  think this through. That’s what we’re all here for.”

The circle of students  that was moments ago exchanging ideas and enthusiastically raising hands to interrupt each other is now dead silent. Before Mrs. Perry can say anything else the homeroom bell rings and we have to go to our first class.

I stalk out of the Upper School building as fast as I can, I was going to have to go all the way to Graduate Hall for the dumb philosophy lecture Hotako put me in. I’m halfway down the steps of the Upper School building when someone falls in step next to me.

“I assume your  project idea is based on current events...on how it looks like the senate will elect that RLA lady to be in charge of the government ?”

I look beside me to see the small girl who never shut up about architecture in class. Architecture Girl isn’t actually toddler sized. But she’s really short and looks like she’s never had a meal in her life. She has heavy bangs and a short hair cut that is oddly bowl shaped and stops just above her round cheeks.

She’s wearing the same bunt orange blazer and pants uniform as me but there’s a shiny academic excellence pin on her collar.

“I mean, yeah,” I say.

When Julian Walker was outed for treason (thanks, MA), The Republic  watched his entire administration get taken to court by the RLA and most were found guilty of collusion with Eastern businesses. The big names were put to death and everyone else working for him was either jailed or blacklisted.

There were supposed to be new elections to reorganize the government and an RLA General named Meredith Baxter-Finch was popular. She promised to strengthen the RLA so the Republic could break ties with the East and provide more opportunity. She was attractive for an older lady, serious, smart, had given lots of people jobs within the RLA and she  seemed to have her shit together. She was career military and people thought the system could use some discipline.

“So, maybe you could focus on the efficiency of military force during ancient--,” Architect Girl starts.

“Or,” I decide. “I could focus on the the inefficacy of military force and militant governments in modern times.”

“Oh. So...you’re like a pacifist, then ?,” she asks quietly.

I laugh at that. I’d had my first kill last year when someone tried to break into our house.  I’d been really good at it.

“More like an anarchist.”

“What ?”

“Nothing. I’m just someone who knows that it’s not great when the controlling government has a mandatory draft. Not to mention it’s kind of absurd a woman could be in charge of the RLA but women aren’t in the draft.”

Architecture Girl follows me into Graduate Hall and I start to realize she may also be in my philosophy lecture. I cut my eyes to see her ID because I don’t remember Architecture Girl's name.

Eden Collins

“Sounds like you have a project idea,” Eden smiles.

“Yeah,” I say. “But where was all this advice in homeroom just now ?”

She looks down guiltily.

“I’m sorry,” Eden says. “But you know how it--”

“Hey,” I cut her off as I spot New Girl stomping quickly down the hall with her head down. She’s wearing heels with the dress and cardigan version of the uniform, her thick heels clack with every step she takes, drawing a bunch of eyes to her.  The unicorn bracelet is on her wrist.

I watch her  disappear into a side classroom

“Who is that girl ?,” I ask.

“I don’t know,” Eden  shrugs. “I think I heard one of the administrators call her Summer ?”

“Don’t you see her in the dorm ?”

While we had our own rooms, we were all packed in the same floor of the dorms and shared a bathroom. I knew more disgusting habits about every boy in my class than I ever wanted to and there were 67 of us. There were only 49  girls.

“She’s not in the dorm,” Eden shrugs.

“Why not ? Is she a day student  or something ?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen a day student at Arkham,” she says "It's too far from anything."

“Don’t you think it’s weird ?  I mean who is she ? She just shows up and we never see her in class. They didn’t even introduce her at assembly ? What is going--”

“Hey,” Eden’s voice suddenly calls. “It’s here remember ?”

I turn to see Eden was a few steps behind me. She’s standing by the door of the lecture hall. Hm, guess she was in my philosophy lecture.

“I’ll be there in a second,” I call and hope she doesn’t interpret that as me telling her to save me a seat.

I’d gone this far without making friends and I wanted to keep it that way.

I sprint over to the room  that New Girl had disappeared into. I see her sitting in a small classroom by herself. She looks up when she hears  me at the door and glares at me. I move to go into the room, but before I can pass the threshold the door is shut in my face and I’m being pulled away by a beast of man in dark fatigues.

He's well over 6 feet tall and he doesn't take his hands off me until I'm atleast a foot from the classroom. There are no RLA insignias on the big man’s uniform, there’s not even a name on the uniform but he could still be RLA. Maybe special operations.  

He doesn’t tell me to leave  New Girl alone or get to class. He just stares me down like a beast sizing up its prey.

I could probably take him, but I don’t feel like it.  I take one last look at the closed classroom door and walk away.

***

-2-

I spot New Girl again at lunch the next day.  She’s sitting by herself which is odd because there are just enough tables at each lunch shift so you literally can’t sit by yourself during lunch hour.

I’d tried.

New Girl  doesn’t have a tray in front of her either. She’s just sitting, primly staring at the table. She’s pretty and a girl so making friends shouldn’t have been that hard for her. I didn’t understand why she pushed me in the water after I saved her ugly bracelet and I start to think maybe she didn’t know I was a cyborg and thought it was all in good fun or something. Or maybe she could tell I thought  her bracelet was ugly.

Either way I was going to find out.

When I get my food I take my tray and go to sit right beside New Girl at her empty lunch table. Without missing a beat she moves to sit in the next chair over so we aren’t right next to each other.

It was a bitchy thing to do but I decide to ignore it.

“Look, I feel like we got off to a bad start,” I start.  “See, we’re both kinda new so-”

Before I can finish New Girl’s  arm flies across the table and she flips my tray. An entire bowl of hot chicken soup falls into my lap and I yelp, pushing the hot food off my crotch and onto the floor.  I hear a teacher coming over to us and I’m surprised the New Girl doesn’t get a little buzz on her minder.

Then I realize she’s not even wearing one.

Oh, what the hell.

“Luce, clean that up !” the teacher on duty shrieks, pointing to the spilled soup on the floor.

“She threw it at me!,” I shout and get a nice little shock from my minder.

“What did I say ?” the teacher repeats and I can tell she’s pissed.

As I bend down to clean up my lunch with a wad of cloth napkins, the beast man in fatigues strolls back into the picture. He has a tray of food and places it in front of the New Girl like he was her servant. She doesn’t even thank him, she just starts eating, ignoring everything--including me on the floor cleaning up my lunch that she threw on the floor.

Once I have the mess mostly cleaned up I walk away. I want to find a table far away from New Girl but most of them are taken. Out of the corner of my eye I catch Eden beckoning me over to sit at her mostly full table. I reluctantly go over and sit  but I can’t take my eyes off New Girl.

She’s not talking to the beast man in the fatigues. She’s mostly looking at her food and Beast Man’s looking at all of the students like he wants to have one of us for lunch.

I stare at her. I look closely at her face, trying to place the hint of familiarity I was picking up.

“Holy shit,” I say and I get a small shock from the minder.

Everyone at Eden’s table looks up at me in horror. I bet her goody two shoes friends had never felt the shock of a minder.

“That girl,” I say. “The new girl, she’s got to be Baxter-Finch’s kid.”

“Does she  even have kids ?,” someone asks,

“I don’t know let’s look it up,” I tell them drily. “Oh, right we can’t.”

Because Arkham was on neoluddite land there were strict rules about what kind of tech was allowed. It was stupid but Hotako loves that isolationist shit. We couldn’t have Syndicates and the only building with web access was the Library, a large orb shaped building in the middle of campus that was open 24 hours. If we wanted to watch movies or play games in our rooms we had to download them one by one from the Library to our Syndicates.

“No way,” another kid says. “If she was Finch’s daughter she’d have private tutors. Why would Baxter Finch ever leave her here ?”

“Maybe so she can be normal ?,” Eden suggests

“Separate classes and separate dorm is not normal,” I say bitterly.

“Maybe she’s not her kid,” Eden says. “Maybe she’s really sick or something. I think you should leave her alone--”

“She started this,” I say banging my fist on the table and they look at me like I’m crazy. I should probably explain to them that she pushed me into the lake but I don’t feel like it.

After lunch I usually spend my free period in my dorm. I liked to sit in  silence sometimes. It was peaceful when so much of my body was chaotic. But instead I go to  the Library and book a private media room. I get online and look through some stories about Baxter-Finch and even though it’s hinted she has a family  in articles there aren’t any in depth reports about her spouse or kids.

I sit for an hour and don’t find any concrete proof of her having a daughter, which is all the proof I needed that either the government or Arkham was hiding that information. Eden said she thought New Girl’s name was Summer but there wasn’t even a Summer on our official class roster. She wasn't accounted for anywhere.

I was mad that New Girl had been pushing me around but I was more pissed at Hotako.

I close out all my screens and march over to the Headmaster’s Office.

When I get to Admin Hall, Hotako’s office door is closed and there is an older couple sitting in the small waiting room and  his administrative assistant, Ms. Sonja is speaking into her Syndicate and  staring intently at the screens, arranging his schedule for the evening. She clicks off her call  and smiles when she sees me coming towards her.

“I want to see the headmaster,” I tell Ms. Sonja.

“You seem upset, honey,” she says. “Are you okay ?”

I hate that she calls me upset. It’s the word Ma used when talking about the baby. Ms. Sonja was only like 10 years older than me, she was a graduate student in botany and worked for Hotako in exchange for free tuition.

“I’m fine,” I tell her through clenched teeth.

“Mr. Washington is conducting an entrance interview right now,” she says, smiling to the couple whose dumb kid must be inside interviewing with Hotako. “But let’s put you on the schedule.”

“I need to see him now,” I tell her.

“How about tomorrow at 3PM ?,” she suggests.

“What about at the end of today?,” I tell her and she looks annoyed.

“Today is no good. Mr. Washington is leaving early to host a reception for donors right after this interview and tour.”

“Fine,” I decide looking at the empty seat in his waiting room. “I’ll wait here for the interview to be over. This won’t take long.”

Ms. Sonja looks over at the waiting couple. When they picture the kind of students at Arkham Academy I’m sure I’m not what they had in mind.

“You know you need to be in class soon, Mr. Grace.”

As she says the words I feel the minder vibrating. That was the warning before it shocked you for being late to class.

I stare at her and I can tell she isn’t going to help me.

“Fine. Tomorrow. 3PM. Whatever,” I say.

“You are on the schedule!” she chirps as I walk out.

But instead of going to class I just stand in outside of Admin Hall, staring at the door. When the bell chimes for class to begin the vibrations in my minder intensify. Once I’m 10 minutes late I get a small warning shock. 20 minutes later I get a real, you’re-missing-class-shock.

“Do you have a pass ?,” A  nervous male voice asks.

I turn to see one of the campus monitors, a senior boy  , staring at me.

“Mind your own business,” I tell him.

“Excuse me ?,” he repeats.

“Stop being a fucking  narc and mind your own damn business”

He frowns and goes to scan the ID around my neck.  I push him away.

“Get your motherfucking hands off me asshole ! ,” I shout at him and I feel kind of bad that I’m bringing him into this, but my minder is buzzing just like how I want it.  “You think you’re fucking better than me ?  Fuck you, asshole. Who the fuck do you think you are ? Fuck you--”

“Hey, man--”

“FUCK YOU !”

My minder has all but set my wrist on fire now from all the zaps.

I finally hear the comprehensive behavior intervention alert  faintly going off through the window to  Hotako’s office. I keep cursing out the campus monitor until Hotako storms out of Admin Hall looking pissed to find me standing outside the building.

He holds the blaring tablet out and I put my hand on it to silence it.

“Headmaster Washington, sir I’m--,” the monitor sputters. He looks like he is about to cry.

Hotako holds out a hand to silence him.

“It’s quite alright, Mr. Grier,” he says to the monitor.  “Luce Grace  is one of my more  challenging students.”

The monitor walks away and Hotako turns his gaze to me. He’d rearranged his face back into an in control calm.

“Go to class, Mr. Grace,” Hotako says, his voice stern.

“No. I want to talk to you first.”

“This isn’t how you get my attention Luce and I will not reward--”

“Cause I don’t get it. We're practically family and all and I’ve been dealing with all the bullshit from the other kids because of my cybernetics and you basically tell me to suck it up and make friends. But then you get your hands on Baxter-Finch’s kid and she gets private tutors and a private dorm even though she’s a certifiable bitch. You’re protecting her like you wouldn’t protect me--”

“Is this about Summer ?,” he asks.

I don’t expect him to admit it so quickly.

“Holy shit, she is Baxter-Finch’s kid ? I was right ?”

He looks around as if to make sure no one is listening.

“I can’t confirm or deny that,” he says. “But I'm glad to see you've taken an interest in someone.”

“What ?,” I spit at him.

“While you know  the school forbids you from acting on them, it’s nice that  you have feelings for someone.”

“I don’t have feelings for her. I have feelings for me.”

He shakes his head.