Justin
"You can't be serious," I protested. I left all that made-up drama behind me when I graduated. I did not want to be dragged back into all of that junk.
"Justin!" Jhondie said, a little irked. "If you don't go, everyone is going to know that I did get played."
"Well you did," I said. Uh, not the best thing to say.
"Fine," she snapped. "Make me look like a total idiot in front of my whole school. We'll just see who's here the next time you need a genetically engineered save."
"Do you really want to go to a dance with someone that doesn't like to dance?" I asked. I didn't like to. Maybe it was because Denise loved it so much. Not regular dancing, she liked all that weird stuff like square dancing and ballroom and anything that required learning from someone else. It got real old real quick being dragged to dancing classes.
"All I'd ask for is one slow dance," she said. "That wouldn't be hard to do, and then everyone would think we were together then, and then we could leave afterwards so it wouldn't matter then anyways." She got all that out in one breath. Didn't she say something about being able to hold her breath for a while?
"Justin," she said softly. "I'm not going to threaten you with bodily harm. I'm asking you as a favor to a friend if you will take me. All it's going to be is dinner with Cheryl and Tyler, and then hang at the Prom long enough to make Kyle and Haille spitting with rage."
I could not believe what I was going to say. "Okay," I said. "One dance. I promise to smile for the pictures, and be so disgustingly sweet to you it'll make the enemy crazed with jealousy." She grinned now. "But you have to promise to actually help me this week and find this Tillman guy."
"Deal!" she said firmly. "I just can't help today." I glared at her. "I have to go see Dr. Lee," she protested. "I need some more Tryptophan, and he's doing a favor for me."
"A favor?" This was interesting.
She looked a little embarrassed. "I'm getting a problem taken care of for the next few weeks," she said. I raised an eyebrow. What problem? She pointed to her neck. "I want to wear my hair up for Prom," she said as an explanation. Oh yeah, that. She told me she could remove the barcode but it would come back.
"Doesn't that hurt?" I asked. We had heard the twins come through the back a minute before, and neither of us wanted them to overhear this kind of conversation.
"Dip your neck in acid and then ask," she replied, and then shrugged. "I want Saturday to be special, so I'm going to do it and have three weeks of freedom." I guess having that off of your neck would be a kind of freedom. She wouldn't have to be careful to keep it hidden for almost a month.
"What about after?" I asked. She'd been so busy the last week doing Prom stuff I had hardly seen her. It may sound a little weird, but I missed her. We were good friends, and when you go from being together all the time to not even a nocturnal visit, it feels strange.
"I have to have dinner with mom and Kayla," she said, "but I'll come back after." She grinned. "Unless you need sleep or something," she continued in a playfully mocking tone.
"Jhon?"
"Yeah?"
"Get out before I change my mind."
She laughed, and jumped up, grabbing her backpack. She paused for a moment, and then gave me a hug. "Thank you," she said. "I promise you'll have a good time." She bounded out of the den with a cheerful "Bye Mr. Carter," to my dad who had walked in at that moment.
He just looked at me. He'd just heard a pretty girl promise me a good time. I guess I deserved a weird look. "It's not like that," I explained. "Jhondie's Prom date got back with his girlfriend and dumped Jhondie so she asked me to take her there."
He looked thoughtful for a minute. "If I'm not mistaken, didn't it take Denise two weeks to get you to go to your own?"
"That was different," I protested. "Jhondie's my friend, not my girlfriend, and she wants to get her ex-date back by showing up with someone better."
Dad grinned. Sometimes it sucked to have a father that was more of a friend than a parent. "So, she thinks you're better, huh?"
"College guys are automatically better than high school guys," I replied, trying to be sound superior. He gave me a yeah, right look. "Seriously. We're just going to make an appearance, and then go hang somewhere."
"Somewhere like?" he questioned.
"Like maybe we'll go out to the old pier," I said. "The dance is at a hotel in Santa Monica, so we'll just hang out there, or…I don't know, just friends stuff." I could feel myself blushing. It's a little harder on me to see, but I could feel my cheeks getting warm.
Dad laughed. "OK, just friends sort of stuff." He wandered off, still snickering.
What the hell had I just gotten myself into?
Jhondie
"Are you alright Jhondie?" Dr. Lee asked me as I sat in the chair. I felt sick. This was going to hurt, I already knew it, and it was just a matter of going through with it.
"I'm fine," I replied. I could hear his daughter preparing the solution. There was a strong acid that would burn the skin, and then a device rather like a belt sander that would scrape off the skin. Bye-bye barcode. For a month at least. Could someone tell me again why I was doing this? Oh yeah, I wanted to look good for Prom. Weird. I wasn't thinking about making Kyle jealous. I wanted to look pretty for Justin. I needed to pound my head against something hard.
"You seem to know that this is going to be painful," he commented. I knew what he was wondering. I wasn't ready to explain the reappearing tattoo thing.
"I had one in another place before," I replied. I smiled weakly. "I got real messed up when I was younger." That was the truth. "This is the last link to my past, and I would like it to be gone," I explained. He nodded, understanding the need to rid yourself of demons. Maybe he would be able to. Mine would wait for me.
I felt like screaming when I felt Lu Chi rub the alcohol swab across my neck. Dr. Lee could tell I looked like I was about to pass out. Well, I wanted to throw up, but that would have to wait.
"Does your mother know?" he asked. Normally he wouldn't pry, but he knew that keeping me talking would help to distract me.
"No," I replied. "It's going to be a big surprise. My sister doesn't know I have it, but my mom is going to be glad to see it gone." She was the first time I had it removed. She wasn't so much when it came back. I've had it removed twice. The first time was to see if it really would come back and the second was when I saw some guy that looked like Lydecker a couple of years ago. It wasn't really him, but I was still freaked.
"So," I said. "Do you have a big family?" I hissed suddenly as the first drops of acid touched my skin. Oh yeah, this was as bad as I remembered. I gritted my teeth, and looked at him.
"I have two younger brothers," he replied, keeping eye contact. "My family was wealthy enough to afford the fees to have extra children. We are all doctors in China. One of my brothers has a son, but my other one has not been able to have a child with his wife. They talk of adopting one. He is much younger than me though. There is plenty of time for him."
Lu Chi was very efficient, but it felt like it was taking forever. I didn't know if they could smell my skin melting, or hear it bubbling, but I could. My stomach was rolling. And this wasn't the part that hurt. I heard the whine start and broke off conversation with Dr. Lee. I had my head in my arms, and couldn't help the tears of pain when she touched that thing to my neck.
I whimpered, biting my lower lip hard. Suck it up solider, I ordered myself. This isn't as bad as napalm. Almost, but not as bad. You dealt with that without crying. Of course crying then would have caused a worse punishment. Screw it, this hurt like hell.
Then she was done and putting an ice pack on my burning skin. I thanked her, and she gave me a damp towel to wipe my face. I was embarrassed, but it was over. In an odd way I felt like I had lost ten pounds or something. If anyone from Manticore saw me, they would have no idea as to who I was. How cool is that?
We made small talk for a bit while Lu Chi made sure my neck was going to be all right. I didn't have the heart to tell her that the chances of infection were about zero with me. Still, it gave me some time to calm down a little. I said my good-byes and went home.
I managed to get three feet into my house before mom accosted me. Luckily Kayla was upstairs doing her homework. We'd both gotten a little behind when Dad died, but I'd caught up in a day or so. She was so jealous, but how could I tell her that I had extra seven or so hours to work that she used to sleep?
"Why were you crying?" she demanded the minute I walked in. How she had managed to see everything on my face from across the room, I'll never know. I think it's a mom thing. "Did something happen at school today?" she asked. She knew about Kyle and everything already.
"I'm fine," I said. "I ended up telling everyone that I was in on Kyle's game and I was planning on going with this college guy all the time."
Mom smiled. "Justin?"
I nodded. "I talked to him after school and he said he would go so all is well for this weekend." I could tell mom was relieved. She didn't like Kyle at all. I was starting to realize that I didn't like him either. I mean, I hadn't really liked him before all this happened. I agreed to go with him a few days before dad was killed. Maybe I'd matured since then, but going out with the real cool guy in school just didn't mean anything to me anymore. I already knew I was going to have a better time with Justin even if all we did was hang out.
"That doesn't tell me why you were crying," she pointed out. I glanced up the stairs to make sure Kayla wasn't coming down. Then I turned around and lifted my hair so she could see my neck. It was still red and tender, but it was bare. I heard her gasp with surprise.
"I was crying because it hurts like hell to have that thing removed," I replied. "I saw this really cool way to wear my hair, and it just wouldn't look good with a barcode." I dropped my hair and turned back to her. She really was shocked that I'd done it. "Looks like I get to spend my graduation as a real person," I said with a smile.
"You're always a real person," she said to me very seriously.
I shrugged. My views on this topic always upset her. A real person didn't have a tracking system attached to them. That's what scientists do to animals that they're doing research on. Jhondie Katherine Harris was a real person, but she was sheltered in a body that belonged to Manticore. Well, as long as I had use for this body, it wasn't going back to Manticore.
Mom went back to making dinner. "So tell me how you want your hair done," she said. I grinned and we started talking about Prom and hair and nails and everything else that would be important that night.
