14: The Grand Tour
Wharton Private Academy for Young Men-
The upperclassmen's dorm was called Carnegie Hall. Nobody did much singing there, though. Constructed of weathered limestone, slate-roofed and sheathed in withered ivy, it looked very much like a crypt to Alan.
After his 'polishment', Case escorted the boy across the empty quad, up a flight of broad steps (their puddle-cupping centers hollowed by thousands of scuffing feet) through a set of wooden doors and into the dorm's entry hall. Okay… he'd been doing his best to play things off, like SoCal had more of this stuff, and ten times better… but Alan was reduced to staring like a tourist at all the weird junk in Carnegie Hall.
At the floor's center, cordoned off with marble pillars and velvet ropes, was what looked like a flat, mosaic sundial. Only, there was this heavy gold ball swinging grandly back and forth above it, hanging from a very long metal cable. Sensing his interest, the headmaster nodded toward the object and said,
"Foucault's Pendulum. It marks time by remaining perfectly stable while the Earth rotates beneath it. In the morning, when you've come down to break your fast, Master Tracy, the floor beneath the pendulum will have moved to the 7AM position."
Right now, that massive ball was hissing back and forth over tiles of dark blue and glittering silver, just above an intricate number '10'. The other side of the sundial thingy was inlaid with tiles of gold, orange and pink; representing day, he supposed. Alan just barely managed a smart-aleck shrug. But his mumbled…
"Sure,"
…lacked the normal eye-rolling boredom. Further inside was another beautifully complicated thing that turned out to be a model of the solar system. Case called it an 'orrery'. Like the pendulum, it was gilded, with spheres of rock crystal and precious stone representing the nine planets. Alan looked for Pluto (a shiny little ball of hematite on a canted golden ring) then Mars (polished red carnelian, about as big as his clenched fist). The thing moved constantly, the planets and moons sliding around their slender rings with sharp little clicks and whirrs. Earth was brightly enameled, with blue and green glass and gold wire marking its oceans and continents. Curious, he checked out the position of the Moon to see where John was right now (just out of sight beyond the eastern horizon, but fixing to rise, soon).
"Master Tracy, the orrery was imported from Florence, Italy, and has graced this hall for a hundred and twenty years. I am fully confident that it shall be present for further inspection come daybreak."
Alan shot Case a quick look, but the old guy really didn't seem to be making fun of him, or anything. Just, y'know, pat-you-on-the-head kind of amused. It was on the tip of his tongue to say 'who cares?' But… the animated solar system was pretty cool. Like, if he wanted to launch in Thunderbird 3 and head for Venus, he'd have to go that way. So, what he actually said was,
"No prob, dude. I've seen enough museum junk for one night, though. How 'bout leading me up to bed?"
If the headmaster was angry, he didn't show it. Instead, Case set off for a narrow stone staircase, saying,
"This way, then, young man. Your personal effects have already been deposited in room 220. For the remainder of the term, you shall have no roommate, as I deemed it unwise to disturb your fellow students in mid-semester…"
…and so on, and so forth. Alan hardly noticed what the man was droning on about, he was so tired.
His new home was on the second floor, south side, blue corridor. It was about the size of a small motel room, with two beds, two desks and bookshelves, a TV, a couch, a worktable and small refrigerator. There was a deep bay window as well, opening onto shifting bare branches, wet stone and foggy street lamps. The carpet was blue, as were the bed covers, and there was a black-and-red Wharton crest painted on the inside wall. Overhead, the ceiling fan sported two chain pulls, one ending in a colorful plastic bass, the other in a rubber figure of Charmander. Nice.
Over in Spain, Gordon spent loads of time at the EU athletic dorms; Alan wondered if this one was anything like his brother's.
"There are restroom and bathing facilities at either end of the hall," Case was saying. "By long tradition, those students residing on the even side of the corridor, such as yourself, use the outside wall facility. Those residing in odd-numbered rooms use the restroom nearest the quad."
Right away, Alan decided to scrap tradition and pee wherever he dang well pleased. Bet you there wasn't cable television here, even. Spotting his backpack and game system on one of the beds, Alan looked around for a second. Then,
"Hold up, Chase-dude," he snapped. "Where's my, like, luggage?"
The headmaster's hands were back in his pockets, and he was rocking again. Man, that was annoying!
"This is all the baggage that you arrived with, Master Tracy," he said.
Alan thought back, saw the Tracy Aerospace van speeding off with an agitated Brains at the wheel, and then slapped at his own blond head.
"Aw, man! That butt-nugget drove off with my luggage!"
"Young man," said Case, folding well-upholstered arms across his chest, "as your behavioral demerits climb toward infinity, I shall be forced to assign a new task; mucking out the stables, perhaps."
Bad move. Alan kind of liked horses, actually. Not that you'd have gotten him to admit it, or anything.
"Fine. I'll upgrade him to 'butt-munch'. Either way, I'm, like, unclothed, dude. This is way unacceptable. I'll have to go to class in, like, an artistically draped sheet, or something."
Case sighed.
"Forty-nine," he said, adding, "I shall arrange for some items of basic school apparel to be sent up from the campus store. Pray write down your size and color preferences. Doubtless, Professor Bremmerman can be induced to purchase whatever else you might need, in town. Good night, Master Tracy."
As the headmaster turned to leave, Alan's hastily scrawled wish list in hand, the boy blurted impulsively,
"Hey, Case-man; got an offer for you. Suppose… just supposing, say… that I can, y'know, go a whole week without getting a single behavior mark? Not one demerit… would you erase all the rest of them? I could still feed the horses, or something, to make up for today."
Case paused to glance curiously at Alan, one eyebrow cocked.
"An intriguing offer, Master Tracy. Before I consider it further, however, I suggest that you practice phrasing your request with fewer 'likes' and 'you knows'. Fifty-two. Bon soir, young man."
Alan groaned inwardly, scowling at the headmaster's retreating back. He didn't have much time to be depressed, though, because almost as soon as Case cleared out, somebody knocked at the door.
Turned out to be Springfield, with his roommate, Cody Briggs. (Kind of a cool guy, but poor. He was here on scholarship, from Nobody's-ever-heard-of-it, Iowa. Red hair, blue eyes, long limbs and day-glow skin, where the freckles of doom weren't eating him alive.)
"Hey, Alan," Chris yawned, torn between friendship and alpha-student hauteur. "Wanted you to meet the guy who's been keeping my GPA off life support. Alan, Cody. Cody Briggs, Alan Tracy."
The other kid (he was about sixteen, Alan figured) stuck out a hand, all mid-western, like. Alan shook it, anyhow, being an ambassador of peace and goodwill from Planet California.
"S'up, man," he drawled.
"Nothing much," Cody beamed. "You?"
"I'm good… except for being trapped in Hicksville without my luggage."
Like the dork that he was, Chris laughed.
"Sucks to be you, Alan. Can't get good help these days, huh?"
"Bite me, Springfield," Alan half-growled, half-laughed. "Unless you got a, like, helpful suggestion…"
"Two," brown-haired Chris grinned at him, dropping the upperclassman routine. "I've got some new tee-shirts and pants you can have (my dad's secretary keeps me pretty well supplied). And… some free advice. Each corridor has a night proctor posted at mid-hall. Avoid them. They'll write down everything you do, and record all requests. Go to the bathroom or ask for aspirin too many times, and you're gonna get a summons from the clinic, trust me."
Springfield paused then, a slightly uncomfortable look in his pale green eyes.
"What?" Alan prodded, warming to the hint of possible drama.
Chris glanced at his roommate.
"Tell him, Cody," he ordered.
The redhead nodded.
"Usually," he said (and his voice was kind of deep, for such a skinny guy), "new kids have to find this out on their own, because everyone thinks it's funny to see them get scared… but, uh… no fooling, the dorm is haunted. Every couple of months (nobody knows why) the second floor gets freezing cold. Then there's footsteps running down the hall like someone's in a real panic, and one or two of the rooms get their doors pounded on. The footsteps keep going, then there's this huge crashing noise, and it's over. Temperature goes back up, and everything. But what you need to remember is…"
Chris pushed Cody out of the way, no longer too cool to reveal vital information.
"It's bad luck if your door gets knocked on, but way worse if you try to open it, okay? Just put your pillow over your head and wait for all the noise to die down. Seriously, man; a senior last year thought he'd be all tough and open the door if the runner knocked."
"So… what happened to him?" Alan inquired, trying to sound bland.
"Well, he laughed it off and stuff, but couldn't really describe what he saw. And later that year, over Christmas break, his folks' country estate burned to the ground, the au pair left, and his stepmom wound up in rehab, again."
"Fifty years ago," Cody cut in, "a sophomore hung himself from the bell tower after failing his final exams. He opened the door, too."
"Yeah, right," Alan scoffed. "It's probably just the proctors, or a couple of seniors getting some sicko thrills."
Chris shrugged.
"Whatever. We warned you." Then, changing the subject, "What's your shirt size?"
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Los Angeles, California, late afternoon-
The sun doused itself in the Pacific, painting the cloudless sky and restless ocean a hundred shades of orange, red and vivid gold. A breeze had sprung up. Fresh, clear and strong, it rustled the trailing leaves of the camphor trees, spreading their spicy scent.
Almost, you could forget how big Los Angeles was, how dirty and crowded and sprawling. People still sold everything they owned to get here, though, summoned by golden light, blue sea and buttery warmth. In swarms they came. Some to make fortunes. Others to barely hang on, still believing California's whispered promises.
This particular evening, just after the sun set, but before the stars finished pricking holes in Heaven, something happened. If you'd been there… maybe walking along the street, staring up at tall, mirrored buildings in the financial district, your camera in hand, your jaw slightly slack… you would not, at first, have heard anything peculiar. Then you'd have seen-heard-felt a sudden shower of window glass; hissing, stinging and crackling to the ground all around you. Confused, you'd jump aside, dropping the camera, just as something big, limp and dark slashed past to land with a great, wet, THUD on a nearby car roof. Your mind would refuse to grasp the nature of all those dank bits exploding outward to pelt you, as the car collapsed and its alarm shrieked to life.
An instant later, standing there in street lights and blood spatter, you'd have recognized part of a twisted limb; an arm and wrist projecting weirdly from the battered remains of the car. You'd have thought, numbly (or gleefully; you know yourself best) "It's a person… a dead guy."
And then, depending on who you are, you'd have reached for your camera, or turned away to throw up. I don't know… maybe, as the screams and sirens and camera whirrs mounted, you would have craned your head to see a last hint of sunset gleaming warm against a shattered window, twenty stories up… and you'd have wondered. But the cyborg killer (brutal, efficient, and invisible when he wanted to be) was long gone.