Barcode: Cavern of Youth (16 page)

“She’s also your teammate for the cavern pursuit. I don’t think this is going to work out.”

“Believe me, she follows orders perfectly.”

Angie’s returned to normal. She walks back to her desk with her eyes fixated on me.

“Take your seat, but please stay away from her.”

I casually walk to my desk, but purposely cross in front of Malik to banter, “Now admit to the entire school that you beat
that
without having the match fixed.” Malik turns to his left to see the wall I’m pointing at. Angie analyzes my face with raised eyebrows and an open mouth. Her hair whips as she looks over at the Colt Stone to see the damage she’s caused.

Angie not only broke through a MMIBS reinforced wall, but she dug her arm so deeply in the stone that it covered her elbow, leaving several cracks stretching from the crater. During our cafeteria brawl, not one student managed to break a table or chair. The only force that I’ve seen destroy Colt Stone this year was Ahmed’s explosions.

My classmates also understand the significance of this destruction. They begin chattering about whether the fight was fixed, like Spencer’s old matches.

Abby turns to Yukio and whispers, “Did you see her barcodes glow?”

“It happened too quickly.”

Selena turns around with widened eyes to address them both. “They were baby blue.”

Abby covers her mouth with her fist and keeps her eyes on Professor Gardezi, who now seems upset that the students are talking. “She’s never activated them before.”

“I thought they were supposed to stay black.”

“That means she didn’t even try to beat Malik.”

“No!” Selena blurts loudly. “She probably just gave up because he would’ve beaten her anyway. No one’s stronger than Malik with Spencer gone.”

Abby bangs her fist on her table. “Please. Malik couldn’t beat me last year. If Monte and Kode didn’t train him, he’d still be an average ranking gladiator.”

Once the conversation between the women ends, they seem prepared to exchange blows.

Professor Gardezi releases a nasty presence that silences all of us. Returning to his desk, he declares, “Any disputes that you have may be resolved in Professor Jules’ race this Friday. Winners will be allowed to choose their team for this year’s final exam.”

Patrick raises his hand until he’s acknowledged by Gardezi, “There are teams for finals this time?”

“Yes. It seems so.”

Thirteen

The night before the race, I decide to skip out on my dungeon duties. Dennis normally has Carmen tag along with him when I’m in the cave. Today, he said he’d stand guard for me.

Normally, I’d want to sit in the cave to train and breathe the fog, but I don’t have much of a choice. I can’t be tired if I want to participate in tomorrow’s activities. Therefore, I decided to hang out with Seth and Antonio. Carmen obviously joined us, but the surprise is Richard’s presence. After school, he kindly asked to hang out with us, and who could turn down such a gentle teddy?

Seth hasn’t spoken to me since I showed him Nevaeh’s hair, and she hasn’t shown herself to me again. She keeps a safer distance when spying on me.

Antonio turns off the television to Carmen’s disappointment, “Awe.”

“I don’t care for Block Parities. Actually, I hate knowing that they’re now televised in California,” Antonio says while turning his nose up.

Seth speaks his first words in weeks with his eyes glued to me. “Stop being such a drama queen.” He’s sitting on his white chair that’s facing Carmen and me. Her long and glimmering legs are kicked over the armrest and my lap.

Seth’s intensive grimace catches Richard’s attention. The big guy leans forward from the center couch. He checks everyone else’s expression in the room and asks, “Am I missing something?”

The way he lunges from his chair, I can tell that Seth isn’t drinking as much as he once was. He has more control of his body and his speech is less slurred. But he can’t stop the foul stench of alcohol from sneaking out of his pores.

Seth passes his bottle of X-Eyes on the counter without looking at it. Surprisingly, it’s nearly full. He’s taking the proper amount of sips per day to maintain functionality.

Everyone’s eyes follow him as far as they can. Once he reaches his room, Seth snatches a jacket from the closet. He returns to us with a sour expression.

Throwing the jacket at me, he says, “It won’t tear your flesh this time. The upgrade has technology that reacts to your power. Instead of the weighted down feeling your current pullover has, this one should feel like a feather on your skin. The gear has the same technology as gravity resistant boots. They absorb wind and energy. Ten percent of that is converted into a negative charge that pushes in the opposite direction of where you’re jumping or running.”

I don’t respond for a few seconds, but eventually ask, “Why?”

“It’s a bit complex, but I guess you could understand—”

“No. I get that you’re using barcodes that essentially access a different dimension while still supporting the theoretical logic with microgravity. But I want to know why you’d do this for me.”

“Competition.”

Richard places his hand over his heart. “I want in.”

Seth gawks at the big man with his barcodes glowing gold. “Please. You’re not strong or fast enough. Don’t bore me.”

Richard stands up and shows that the pot belly doesn’t make him a push over. “I wasn’t asking,” he exhorts with a smile.

“Seth,” I interrupt. “Don’t read the barcode on his shoulder. Look at the ones in his mouth. They go down to his stomach.”

Richard grins confidently. Then, he sticks out his tongue and says, “Ah.” Initially, Seth doesn’t see anything, but Richard activates the codes. Once they glow a bright golden color, Seth chokes on his own saliva.

Grabbing Richard’s face roughly, Seth squeezes his fat cheeks and slams him on the couch. “You’ve got to be kidding me. These barcodes are man-made. You survived this tattooing?”

With his mouth open, Richard still manages to speak smoothly, “Not really.”

On Seth’s command, the couch converts into a surgical bed and the chandelier overhead drops down the same tools that are normally found in doctors’ offices. Seth grabs a hand-held black light that surgeons often use to reveal deactivated barcodes. The light also clarifies corrupted data for those with analytical tattoos, like Seth. He shines it in Richard’s mouth before making him stretch out. Antonio flickers when Richard lies down and enters his projection. Then, he disappears and reappears on a screen that floats around the table.

Carmen and I stand up to join the examination. I change my jackets and enjoy the fact that Seth left a graffiti design of the letter “K” on my back. He even tore off the sleeves. Now, I don’t have to make room for Shiva. The jacket squeezes me lightly, adjusting to my size. It stops me from breathing temporarily, but eventually becomes a perfect fit.

“Antonio,” Seth calls gently.

“Yes?”

“Did the nanobots complete the projector for the body scanner?”

“Yes.”

“Bring that out so I can see his organs.”

Antonio’s screen turns on its flat side and faces Richard’s body. A bright beam of light covers Richard, but he doesn’t seem to care. Then, a projector appears behind us.

“You all should turn away,” Seth exclaims while walking to his wall behind the couch. “The first image is a naked picture.”

Strolling to the projector, I say, “I can hear beneath clothes by choice. It’s no big deal to me.”

“I’ve healed his wounds after finals so I’ve seen what he looks like too.” I shoot Carmen a jealous squint and she playfully makes a “Hmph,” sound. Then she mouths, “Don’t start with me, papi. I know you look at Angie.”

“What’s up with you and her?”

Antonio jokes, “I can’t look away. I’m taking the pictures.”

Seth makes things worse. “I’m a licensed doctor in Spain. I’m used to bodies. I am bisexual though. Sorry if that makes you a bit uncomfortable.”

Richard sits up on the table and yells, “What the hell is wrong with ya’ll?”

Some gravitational force pulls him back down and Seth coaxes, “Thank you, dear.”

“You’re very welcome,” Antonio replies with a giggle.

Once the flashes stop, Seth flips through the images until he finds the organs. He points to the stomach while saying, “Damn,” and the picture zooms in. “Create a 3D image and use the color hologram.” Seth turns around and takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry Antonio. Do you mind?”

“No. I’m happy to help.” The hologram projects over Richard’s actual stomach and the chandelier retracts. “You can stand up now.”

Richard moves away from the bench saying, “Whoa. I never saw the inside.”

“What the hell am I looking at?” Seth asks roughly.

“Long story man.”

Carmen interjects, “We have time.”

“Yes. Do tell why you have barcodes from your tongue all the way to your stomach.” Seth sits back in his chair while rubbing his temples. “You should be dead.”

The hologram stops and everyone returns to their seats, including Antonio.

“When I was a kid, I ate a lot. I wasn’t big or fat, pretty muscular actually. My entire family is built with warriors that look like the Payne family. They’re humungous. Men’s men. There are no women in the entire clan.”

“They break into a new science I don’t know about? I can’t imagine you pregnant, theoretically. I can see the physical,” he jeers while pointing to the 3D image of Richard’s stomach.

“All daughters are killed at birth and any weak-looking boys are too. Basically, if you’re not a strong boy that tears through the womb, you’re considered DOA.”

“Sounds like the Spartans,” I add with a bit of history.

“That’s where they got the idea,” he responds, turning to me. “I wasn’t strong like the others. My body was weaker, but my tattoo was more than good enough to let me live. Plus, I think my dad had a soft heart. Though he’d yell at me in public, he was the only parent that played with his child in secret. The others were trained mercilessly.”

“Get to the barcodes,” Seth snaps, circling his hands impatiently.

“I didn’t know what they were. We were meant to fight, not look at science. For all I knew, Chaac’s tattoo was a cool birthmark that looked like a cloud that rained when activated.”

No one speaks for a moment, then we all curse in our own way. I nearly throw Carmen off of me by accident.

“Sorry sweetie.”

“It’s okay.”

I swiftly return my attention to Richard. “What the hell?”

Following up for me, Carmen shouts, “You’re a Mayan god?”

Richard displays his pearly whites and excellent cheek bone structure. That smile says it all. A human hosting the power of an actual Mayan god.

Even I haven’t seen one. I honestly started believing they were myths created by various people in hopes that their genealogy would seem more interesting. The Mayan people have nearly been erased from history. Their pyramids were eradicated during WWT and all that remains are broken stones with random pictures. The only information scientists have are images from ancient archives. Many aren’t trustworthy because of how often forgers create pictures that were discovered from recovered computers.

Seth’s aggression returns as he asks, “Why are you in demigod classes?”

“Why are
you,
Zeus?”

“Rumors are that Mayans have trumped Olympians forever. Your codes only come up once every few centuries and you’re killed off for the most part.”

“Yeah. There’s no way the Ellingtons would kill off a Mayan. I was the great white hope.” Even Seth has to laugh at that. “Thing is, I wasn’t strong like the others unless I was...”

Carmen lists off words speedily, “Angry, upset, frustrated, jealous, tense, scared, frantic, drunk, horny?” I cover her mouth when I realize she’ll keep this up infinitely. Plus, the words were spilling so rapidly, I couldn’t understand them anymore.

“Hungry.”

Seth laughs from the gut until he falls on the floor. Carmen and I hold each other trying not to laugh, but Seth’s screams are making it too difficult. We give in when Richard laughs too.

Once Seth manages to catch his breath, he pleads, “Will you finally get to the tattooing?”

“Some liminal beings came out of nowhere and tried showing our people how they could increase their power by tattooing additional codes on their skin. The only problem was, our men were getting really sick and weak. My father killed the creatures, assuming they poisoned the barcodes. Though he took the glass bottle they carried their ink in, he couldn’t figure out how to discard it. He left it on the kitchen counter while I was at school.”

“No way,” Carmen grumbles through my hands. I finally remember to actually withdraw my arm.

“Yeah. I ditched classes that day and saw it. Drank it real quick style.”

“Painful?” I inquire.

“That’s damn sure!” Richard shakes his head and smiles. “For years.”

Seth plays with the hologram of the stomach while twirling it around. His bullhorns change from red to gold rapidly. He walks over to a wall and begins drawing equations with his index finger. The numbers shine neon blue. The nerd sits on the ground and grunts endlessly. Finally he spins around and asks, “What’s all this dimensional space doing in your gut?”

Richard makes a quick choking sound. His jaws stretch like a cobra as he shoves his fist in his mouth. Slowly, he removes a small katana. Using his shirt, he wipes the saliva. Once it completely dries, the sword extends nearly twelve feet long.

“The dimension allows me to compress shapes like MIBS-squared.”

Carmen’s mouth drops. “You’re the guy from Northern California everyone brags about. You can process MIBS in your mouth.”

“No. Not quite. It’s not MIBS or MIBS-squared. It’s just a similar technique. I can compress and combine objects in my stomach. I’ve added weapons together, created bombs, poison, and medicines. I study a lot of organic remedies and store lots of plants in my stomach. I can probably heal any disease that Seth can. He may be faster though.”

“I can’t understand. You’re a Mayan, you’ve got this awesome stomach, but you’re a weak as hell,” Seth jeers.