Barcode: Cavern of Youth (9 page)

I wrap the animal in my right hand and hold her up. She fights while wiping the cleaner from her eyes as I peel back the uniform.

Carmen says, “Awe. He’s so cute. Stop hurting him.”

“She’s a girl.”

The monkey continues fighting while I pluck a hair from her head. I planned on releasing her until she rubbed her scalp and made a faint, “Ow,” sound.

I hand the hair to Carmen and hold the beast in both of my hands.

“You can talk.”

The creature doesn’t reply so I pluck another piece of hair, but this time I open my eyes to see and hear things more clearly. Listening to her organs, I can tell the she’s very advanced, more than any of Gonzales’ pets. Upon closer observation, this small girl looks as evolved as liminal beings.

“Why were you always following me and Spencer around?”

She gazes into my eyes without saying a word. Her breathing calms, and she stops fighting, but refuses to speak.

Carmen leans against my back with her face pressed against me and pats the girl on the head. Though most of the animal is a monkey, the white fur, pink ears, and nose are definitely a rabbit’s.

“I’ve never seen a crossbreed of liminal beings like you. You’re not fooling me. I know you can talk and understand what I’m saying.” Realizing that she may only know Aeoy, I ask if she wants me to stop speaking English, “Bk o hiom wa mok omko opaioeog Aoegeoy?”

“No, brother,” she replies with a very adult voice. Her tone is motherly like Hayley’s, but gentle like Carmen’s.

“Why are you following me?”

“I was instructed to.”

“By who?”

“I’m not allowed to say,” her eyes water as though she’s in fear.

A sigh sneaks from my lips and a yawn follows. I shake my head and look into her eyes. “Listen, love. I’m not going to hurt you. Calm down.” Carmen’s eyes float towards mine. “What can you tell me?” I ask while loosening my grip and lowering her to my lap.

“My English name is Nevaeh. I am supposed to observe you until Master returns, so I may report all of your actions to him. But,” she tears up again, “I did not mean to cause you any trouble, brother. I will report this, I promise. I am responsible.”

“Whoa. Calm down.”

Carmen adds, “Then explain why you keep calling him brother.”

Nevaeh wipes her face again. The two women I’m paired with are emotional wrecks. Even Carmen’s starting to tear up.

“It’s not my place to say.”

“You’re going to tell me that part or I won’t let go.” I accidentally tighten my grip a bit and she fights for air.

She rubs her nose and mournfully says, “Everyone with the blood of ink are brothers and sisters. Master predicts that he’ll return within this year or the next to deliver the information himself.”

None of us speak a word for some time. Carmen’s the first to echo, “Blood of ink?”

I’m too afraid to ask what that means. Not to mention, Nevaeh probably can’t answer.

Her rabbit ears dart up and her body warms lightly in my hands. With her eyes glued to the door and her fingers tightly wrapped around my thumb, she pleads, “Brother, please release me. Father doesn’t know about my escape, and if he finds me, our family will be killed. Please.”

“Father?”

“He’s different. He doesn’t have our blood, but he created several of us. I cannot be responsible for their deaths. Please, brother. Please!”

Nevaeh’s pleading is frantic. As she pushes against my grip, I get a sense for how strong she really is. It’s quite amazing for her size.

At the last second, I release her. She dashes behind a bookshelf and into the wall. Seconds later, Seth opens the door out of breath.

He searches the room with his headphones buzzing loudly. As Nevaeh travels through the walls, the buzzing weakens. He seems crushed. To add fuel to the fire, I take the fur from Carmen’s hand and hold it up for him to witness.

"en-US" xml:lang="en-US">“That’s what he said his name was.”

“His name is Hades. That makes him Hades.”

“How long are we going to do this? You really think I traveled to Hades and spoke to a real life god?”

Antonio frowns his digital face and flares his nose. “Yes.”

After finishing the sandwich I stole from Seth’s refrigerator, I clean up my mess and place everything in the dishwasher.

Seth’s apartment is always a mess. I often sneak over in the mornings when he’s out getting drunk. Antonio says the ex-genius goes out for training, but not even the digital monster seems to believe that.

Though the nanobots aren’t as capable as they were before Seth’s skills started slipping, they do an excellent job of cleaning up the place when I come over. When everything’s organized, the living room is visually appeasing.

A few months back, Seth had the carpet removed and aesthetically decorated the stained concrete.

Though Seth’s intelligence has deteriorated, his home designer skills have evolved. The square patterns on the floor look more artistic than some of the best cubist paintings in the thirtieth century. The white, red, and black designs could make me dizzy from staring at them too long, but they increase the room’s attractiveness.

He’s been experimenting with using MMIBS on fabrics as well. Not only did he change the frames of his couches to a sleeker and durable threaded material, he brightened the color of the red pillows to give the room a lively focal point against the white furniture.

“What about after? Did you ever learn how to breathe the fog?”

Taking a seat next to Antonio, I reply, “Yeah. It was difficult though. First, Blue-Skin—”

“Can you please stop calling him that? You’re awful at making nicknames.”

“But it’s fun. Anyway, Blue-Skin took me away from his girlfriend and explained the similarities between the water and the fog. Supposedly, the fog that eats on dead flesh also helps restore life. But you have to drink from the Daughters of Danaus first. He gave me a fair warning. It seems that they’ll sometimes poison the water and kill you. Depends on their mood.”

“Nothing’s changed over the years.”

“Whatever. I don’t get it from a scientific point of view, but I was down for drinking cave water. It was obviously sterile because the golden bridge room boiled it at a ridiculous temperature.”

Antonio’s image begins flickering. “Damn software. Update!”

“Seth’s lost his touch, huh?”

“Get back to the fog.”

“It was simple, but painful. A low mist appeared over the river, and Blue-Skin said I had to drink as much as I could while inhaling deeply. I didn’t realize how hard that was, but I kept drinking. I tried getting up once, but the girls held on to me for an hour.”

Holding one finger up, I rush to the bathroom again. I’ve been doing this for the past eight hours. My overactive bladder has prevented me from falling asleep all night. That’s why I decided to visit the geeks’ apartment. Not to mention, I need Antonio’s help. But he keeps getting distracted.

I tell the rest of the story once I’m back in the room. “Drinking all that water was damn hard, but stopped my joints from hurting.”

Antonio looks at Carmen. She’s sitting neatly on an adjacent couch with her arms folded. “I keep forgetting she’s here.”

“Boring, I know. She was definitely more exciting when I first met her.”

“I just don’t want to interrupt. You’re already protecting me, and that’s a horrible invasion of your space as is,” Carmen gushes without a breath or pause between any of her words.

“Whoa. I can understand you, but can you slow that down some?”

“Nervous habit. Sorry.” Clearing her throat she says, “But Antonio’s avoiding helping you find Monte. You’ve asked him like three times, and he smoothly changes the subject.” Antonio glares at Carmen. Unable to maintain eye contact with him, she turns to me as though I’ll save her. “I’m just trying to help you out since I’m here and all.”

“She’s right, you see-through-nerd. Why are you avoiding the topic so much? Just to let you know, I
will
threaten you with a deathnote. I know your ISP and that encryption crap doesn’t work with me.”

The drama king releases an incredible sigh and confesses, “I’ve known about the trouble Monte’s gotten into for some time.”

Carmen barges into the conversation. “So spill the beans!” Her initial response was perfect, but she covers her mouth as though she regrets saying anything at all.

“Stop that submissive woman shit! I want you to say whatever you want. Drop your hands.” Turning to Antonio, I motion for him to speed up the story. “You’re stalling. Seth is on his way. He just entered my radius. He has a mile left to jog, and you can’t avoid me that long.”

Seth’s moving at more of a sprint, and Antonio could hold out if he tried.

“Fine. But first you have to tell me why you want this information so badly.”

“I need to know what he’s doing to determine if he’s working for someone.”

“Who?”

“You said I had to answer your previous question.”

Several projections appear in front of me displaying images of destroyed buildings, video clips of slain gladiators on rooftops, and articles about the massacre of mafia members in Southern California. “Monte’s been seeking various thrills since you’ve disappeared. I know all about the Cavern of Youth adventure Mr. Jules sent you on last year, but that’s nothing compared to the things Monte’s gotten himself into. I think you were his better judgment because he’s been nothing but trouble since you
vanished
.”

“I know about the bank robbery. What are these?”

“It’s not just one.” Antonio holds his palm out and swipes his hand to the left. A projection of an article about four violent bank robberies moves the other screens out of the way. “He robs them and sends the money to a foreign account that I can’t trace. He’s a serial killer that targets high ranking gang members, but knows a lot of East LA residents. He’s also attacked several student gladiators on rooftops.”

Seth bursts through the door.

His armor changed with his name. The epic gear that once graced the genius now resembles a densely padded leather jumpsuit. The gear is dark blue with red outlines. This armor looks like casual clothes with heavy, dark-blue shoulder pads.

Seth examines us while drinking a half-empty bottle of X-Eyes. The two black X’s on the front have been scratched off. The smile and tongue sticking out were left in order. Other parts of the bottle seem damaged, as though they were scraped repeatedly by bullets.

His eyes remain welded to Carmen while taking a sip of the alcohol. Then, he walks over to an empty chair and plunges his weight into it.

“Who the hell are you?” He wipes sweat from his brow and takes another sip.

“I’m Kay and that’s Carmen.”

Seth observes the both of us with his barcodes lit. Since I was forced to inhale fog and water, I’ve been able to see a hint of color with my eyes closed. Though it’s not much, I notice Seth’s bullhorns over his eyebrows shine a dull gold.

“You’re Kay? If that was your simple name all along, you could’ve just told me.”

My left eye ticks and I ask, “What are you talking about?”

“You’ve lost some size due to the bandages. The data they have coursing through your blood is compressing your muscles and bones. Even with the loss of girth, I know you. If that wasn’t enough, you didn’t change your jacket that’s too big for you now.”

“You can see the codes in the bandages?”

“I finally have control over my barcodes. If you received the bandages three weeks back, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. But I recorded your data not too long ago,” he sputters while tapping on his head. Though he’s learning to control his intelligence, he remains a drunk with slurred speech and an unpleasant odor.

“Did you ever record people before you started X-Eyes?”

“I did, but the toxin deleted most of it. My memory is hazy and probably won’t come back.” Antonio stands up and walks out of the room quietly. “Why does he look so prissy?”

“You didn’t say hi to him when you walked in. You were rude,” Carmen snaps. Antonio ghostly fades away.

Seth blurts, “Fag.” Then, he takes another small sip before closing the bottle.

Tilting my head to the side, I jest, “Don’t you enjoy the company of boys in your back door as well? Don’t tell me you’re using hurtful words just to sound cool.”

Seth raises his eyebrow. “I’m bi.”

“Yeah,
that’s
different. You’re an idiot too.”

“I’m an idiot compared to the person I once was. I could still outsmart you.”

Leaning forward in my seat, I prod, “Please continue.”

“There’s nothing more to say. I’ve forgotten more than you’ll ever know.”

Antonio’s screen activates and it turns towards Seth. “You talk a lot now, but you hardly do anything. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. You do not know Kay.”

Seth dissects my forehead with his activated barcodes. “Yeah right.”

“Would you like to create a wager?”

“You’ll bet on someone you hardly know just to prove a point to me? Have I pissed you off that much, honey?”

“Because of the oppressed love you had for Spencer Colt, you’ve become obsessed with capturing the wild creature that once haunted your apartment. But you haven’t come close. Not a hair or a footprint.”

Seth falls back in his chair and takes a gulp of the drink. “Speed this up so I can get to the challenge.”

I run to the bathroom once more while they continue arguing.

“I bet that Kay could find a trace of him or even capture the creature within an hour.”

“Do I have to sit back and watch the magic happen or can I chase the monster too?”

“It’s up to you, as long as you don’t get in Kay’s way.”

They sit in silence for a few minutes. I exit the room and gesture for Carmen to follow me. As she clumsily staggers to her feet, I boast, “Be back in a few seconds with some trace of the miniature monster.”

I wait for the elevator to open, and listen as Seth walks into his bedroom and removes some of the most recent devices that he’s built to search for the monkey-rabbit. He stops completely and taps his chin. Then, Seth launches various materials across the room.