Freaks of Greenfield High (11 page)

“Excuse me,” she said to a female shop assistant stocking the shelves. “I’m trying to pick an iPod but I’m having difficulty choosing a color.”

“For you?” the girl asked.

“Yes.”

“Easy. What’s your favorite color?”

“I don’t have one.”

The girl blinked but was too polite to comment.

“What’s
your
favorite color?” Jay asked.

Taking the request seriously, the girl scanned the shelf. “Ummm, I quite like this purple one. Pink’s too little-girly, you know? Purple’s still feminine but more stylish.”

“I appreciate your advice. I’ll have the purple one, then.”

The girl unlocked the cabinet, grabbed the iPod and escorted Jay to the counter. “Rob’ll sort you out.”

“Thank you.” Jay scanned the girl’s nametag and remembered to smile. “Michelle.”

“You’re welcome.”

The assistant named Rob shot her numerous not-so-surreptitious glances while he rattled off the store’s return policy and the item’s warranty conditions. As he rang up her purchase, Jay detected his elevated pulse rate, dilated eyes and flushed cheeks. She wondered whether he might be coming down with a virus.

“Here you are.” He handed over her receipt and the bag containing her purchase. And then he leaned over the countertop to press something else into her hand. “Be seeing you.” He threw her a sly wink before turning his attention to his next customer.

“Thank you.” Jay left the counter. She extracted the iPod from its packaging and slipped the tiny device and the ear buds in the back pocket of her jeans. The recharger went in the nearest bin, along with the copious packaging. It would be far more convenient to charge the item by having her body emit a low level electrical current whenever she handled the device.

As she exited the store, she examined the business card the assistant had given her. He’d scrawled a cell phone number on the back. She could only surmise it was his personal number. And that he’d been flirting… with her.

His behavior indicated he found her attractive and would like her to contact him. But why single
her
out, when there had been two other girls waiting in line behind her?

Tyler had responded to Jay’s physical form in a similar fashion. So had Shawn, and many of the boys in her classes. But she hadn’t deliberately secreted pheromones or groomed herself to attract the attention of young males. What was it about this form that made it so attractive?

It was all very confusing. So confusing, that if she’d been human she suspected her head would be aching right now.

As she walked the couple of blocks to Caro’s house, she continued analyzing the incident with the young male in the electronics store, observing and processing new information about the town she’d chosen to hide in, reviewing her class schedule for tomorrow, and pondering the mysteries of human social customs.

Pretending to be human was far more difficult than she had predicted. Nothing in her titanium skeletal structure overlaid with human tissue, her artificial organs and implants, or the complex synthetic neural network that drove her ability to reason, could assist her. She’d been given the capability to alter her outward appearance, to appear to grow and age like a normal human if necessary, but in truth she was nothing more than a super-computer given human form.

A startling conclusion smacked her, and her head jerked as though she’d been struck in the jaw by some iron-fisted assailant. She was programmed with vast tracts of information about every imaginable subject, and could use the wireless networks to instantly access a huge variety of information. It shouldn’t be possible for her to
be
confused. But she was. The male-female dynamic confused her at every turn.

And this all-too-humanlike confusion was not the only anomaly she’d been suffering lately. The unidentified
feeling
, for lack of a more accurate description, was always there, hovering on the edge of her conscious awareness, waiting. Always waiting. But for what? Some catalyst, some pivotal situation that would provoke a particular action, or reaction, from her?

Jay had no answer. And for a super-human machine who always knew what was happening inside her, right down to the most infinitesimal process, that was paradoxical.

She kept her gait loose-hipped and relaxed, moving at a steady pace while she considered Tyler and his reaction to what he’d described as her “stunt”. He had looked at her differently, speculatively, like she was an unknown quantity. It’d been foolish for her to toss Shawn in the Dumpster and display her capabilities in such a fashion. And it had been completely outside the parameters of her core programming for her to act without first considering the risks.

She could only trust she would not have cause to regret her actions in the future. And that Shawn would react as she predicted, and be too concerned with licking his wounded pride to bother her further.

Pause current thought-thread
.

Licking wounded pride. She pondered the metaphor. Her own saliva contained enzymes that enhanced the inbuilt healing abilities of her outer dermal layer. If her physical body was injured, she often licked her wounds. Did that constitute irony?

She decided it did.

Resume
.

Despite her error of judgment, Tyler appeared to want to be her friend. Caro, too, had made overtures of friendship. Even Matt had chosen not to aid Shawn, and had displayed concern for her physical state.

For now—on the surface at least—Jay was one of them. She belonged. And belonging was excellent camouflage.

She consulted her internal clock and continued on her way. If she maintained her current speed, she would arrive exactly at the time Caro had specified. Excellent.

She reran her encounters with Caro’s brother and chose a pleasing image of Tyler which she then fixed in her memory banks. Strangely, the chorus of the song she’d heard him playing resounded again in her head. And it consumed her.

Thoughts of you glowing in my heart,
Thoughts of you shining in my soul,
Thoughts of you blazing in my mind,
Thoughts of you, burning.
Thoughts of you,
Burn.

Six minutes twenty-three seconds passed before she emerged from what humans would term a daydream to find that she’d halted in the middle of the pavement. Unless she ran the rest of the way, she would now arrive later that she had planned. But for some inexplicable reason she did not increase her speed to compensate for the delay.

She turned the corner and strolled up the path toward Caro and Tyler’s house. At precisely 1839 hours she stood before the Davidson’s front door.

It felt good—
cool
—to have chosen to arrive late. And as she rang the door bell and listened for footsteps, her thoughts were so centered upon Tyler, it didn’t occur to her to be alarmed that she felt anything at all.

Jay watched the figure inside the house approaching the front door. Viewed through the patterned frosted-glass panes, Tyler’s features appeared so grossly distorted that he resembled a cartoon caricature. Once her vision compensated for the distortion, she could see him chewing his lower lip, hands fluttering nervously at his sides as he tugged his shirt straight and finger-combed his hair.

If she cared to, she could eavesdrop and hear what he was muttering beneath his breath. Out of courtesy she tuned out, respecting his privacy. Father had taught her to do that. The old man had habitually muttered to himself and hadn’t appreciated having his words repeated back to him verbatim.

Courtesy aside, some part of Jay dearly wanted to hear Tyler’s words. Because some part of her—an alien part, still in its infancy—hoped his mutterings might somehow relate to her.

An ancient station wagon demanded her attention when it jumped the curb before rattling to a screeching halt in the driveway. Its driver was a woman with the same rich auburn tones to her hair as Caro’s.

The woman left the engine idling while she fumbled about in her handbag. “Dammit!” Jay heard her say. “Where the heck did I put the darn remote?”

The car’s engine hiccoughed and spluttered, and she revved it to prevent it from stalling. Finally locating the remote, she aimed it at the garage door… which refused to do what it was supposed to do. Namely, open.

She closed her eyes, groaned and rested her forehead on the steering wheel for a few moments before jabbing the remote—again with no success.

Tyler jerked open the front door and Jay switched her focus back to him.

“Jay,” he said, sounding breathless. “C’mon in.”

“Hello, Tyler. Your mother’s home.”

He stood on tiptoes and craned his neck to look over her shoulder. “Ah crap,” he muttered. “Garage door opener’s on the blink again. Can you tell her I’ll open it manually?” He raced off down the hall.

“There’s a pot boiling over on the stove,” she called after him.

“The pasta!” she heard him say before another expletive floated to her ears.

Jay walked over to the car. The driver’s name was Marissa Carolyn Davidson. Jay knew this because once she’d decided to make Snapperton her home, she’d accessed public records for every Snapperton resident.

Marissa was forty-three and mother of twins—Tyler, and Carolyn, who preferred the diminutive “Caro”. Five years ago, Marissa’s husband had packed a suitcase, walked out of the house, and for all intents and purposes, vanished. Town gossip insisted he’d run off with some unidentified floozy.

Marissa was currently employed as a secretary with the Snapperton Legal Office. Prior to embracing full-time motherhood she’d been a registered paralegal, doing everything for her employer barring presenting actual cases in court and giving legal advice. Her skills were both underutilized and unappreciated by her current employer. She was barely managing to cover her family’s living expenses.

Right now she was taking out her frustrations on the garage door remote.

When Jay tapped on the driver’s side window, Marissa jerked in her seat, eyes wide as they raked Jay’s face, one hand fluttering at her throat. Her breathing was rapid and her pulse had quickened.

Jay had scared her, and that had not been her intention. She ventured an “I’m harmless” smile.

Marissa rolled down the window of the vehicle.

“Hello, Mrs. Davidson. Tyler’s just opening the garage door for you. Would you like me to take a look at that remote? I’m Jay, by the way.”

Marissa checked her over. “Well, hi there, Jay. You one of Caro’s friends?”

“I hope so. I’m also a friend of Tyler’s.”

“Really.” Marissa cocked her head to one side and eyed Jay thoughtfully. “Tyler’s friend too, huh?”

Jay nodded. Since Marissa obviously found it strange that Jay would be friends with her son, she chose to volunteer just enough information to settle any qualms the woman might have. “I just transferred in. Tyler and I are Bio partners and we have English together, too.” That last fact Tyler had yet to discover because he’d skipped English.

She ducked her head and scuffed her sneaker on the driveway, acting as though she was embarrassed about admitting something. “He’s very sweet. He helped me get through my first day.”

Marissa’s expression smoothed, doubts sliding away. “First day at a new school isn’t much fun for anyone.”

Jay nodded. “Yes. It was rough. Would you like me to look at that for you?” She held out her hand for the garage door remote.

“You fancy yourself a bit of an expert with electronics, huh?”

“I don’t fancy myself an expert, I am one.” It was the truth, and she saw no reason to make light of her abilities in this instance.

Shrugging, Marissa relinquished the remote. “What the hey. It’s not like it’s working properly anyway.”

Jay pulled a tiny toolkit from her jeans’ pocket, selected a screwdriver, and began to disassemble the remote. She noted Marissa’s theatrical wince. “It’s quite a simple device,” she assured her. “It will be easy to find out what’s wrong with it.”

“Sorry to come across so anti,” Marissa said. “Mike—that’s Caro and Tyler’s dad—fancied himself a bit of a handyman. He was a whiz with computers, but anything else? Let’s just say it never ended well.”

The garage door creaked open to reveal Tyler leaning on a button by the internal door. “Hi, Mom. Sorry I took so long.”

His mother parked the vehicle and cut the engine. It died with a cough which didn’t bode well for it starting up again without a struggle. She got out of the car and slammed the door shut. “Bloody car,” she muttered. “Last thing I need right now is for it to give up the ghost.”

Tyler beckoned Jay inside. “Caro invited Jay for dinner,” he said to his mother.
Hope that’s okay?
he mouthed.

His mother hesitated, then gave a quick nod.

Jay pretended not to have seen the silent communication and ducked her head as though intent on the inner workings of the remote.