Insignia (14 page)

Blackburn studied him. “This is probably your first time living away from home, isn’t it? Trust me, you don’t want to start your time here by getting on my bad side. You won’t be getting anyone in trouble if you tell me who did it. I only want to speak to the hacker.”

Tom had ripped off enough people in VR parlors to know threats when he heard them. And he didn’t believe for a second that Blackburn just wanted a friendly chat with a hacker breaking into secure databases. He held Blackburn’s gaze, his heart picking up a beat. “I’ve forgotten, sir.”

“No, you haven’t. You just don’t want to tell me. Fine. If you don’t want to talk, then I’m drafting you to be the subject for my demonstration today.”

Tom glanced uneasily up at the screen, where some lines of code were now displayed. “What do I do?”

Blackburn shook his head. “You’ll do nothing but stand on the stage and receive the computer viruses I’m going to feed into your processor. The code will manipulate your brain.”

Tom’s stomach flipped. “Uh, manipulate it how?”

“Anything your brain can do, I might make it do. Get up here.”

Tom mounted the steps on the side of the stage, his legs suddenly shaky. That was not reassuring.

As soon as everyone had returned to the room, Blackburn jerked his head, summoning Tom over from where he’d been hovering uneasily by the steps.

Blackburn announced to the class, “Let’s talk computer viruses. The process of infecting a neural processor works in much the same way it would on a computer at home. If Raines here were physically connected to a computer via a neural wire, I could infect him with a virus from anywhere if I also had an internet connection and the ability to hack through the firewall protecting him. But he’s not physically connected to the internet; he’s connected to the Spire’s server via his internal transmitter. So I’m going to feed him a virus from my transmitter to his.”

Blackburn began jabbing at a keyboard strapped to his thick forearm. Tom looked back, and saw Blackburn’s code dancing across the massive screen, allowing all the trainees to see what he typed.

“A virus like this gets into a system by piggybacking itself on an existing program in the target’s active applications. For the final step, I stick in my target’s IP address. You can target more than one IP. Now here”—he typed something more—“I code the initiation sequence. The malicious program will trigger as soon as it’s in his processor. Then the self-termination sequence to ensure the program stops itself in five minutes.” He clapped his heavy hand on Tom’s shoulder, jostling him. “Are you ready, Raines?”

“Does it matter if I’m not?”

“No, that was a courtesy. So is this: name the part of your brain you want me to tamper with first.”

Tom felt himself tense. “How about none?”

“No preference? Fine. First target: the hypothalamus.” Blackburn began typing, and then text scrolled across Tom’s vision:
Datastream received: program Insatiable Appetite initiated
.

Tom cringed, expecting something horrible. But nothing happened.

Nothing except …

Except …

His stomach growled. Tom realized suddenly he was starving—absolutely starving. The painful ache in his gut consumed him. His entire brain riveted to the idea of food, delicious food. He’d kill for fries. He could eat a horse. He could eat a hundred nutrient bars. Wait, he had a nutrient bar!

He dug into his pocket frantically, so desperate for food that he didn’t care about all the eyes on him. He’d quite forgotten what he was supposed to be doing up here, anyway. He tore open the packaging of the nutrient bar with his teeth. He devoured half the bar in one bite, not even bothering to form a mental image of some food he liked.

“The neurons in your brain communicate through a series of electrical signals,” Blackburn told the class. “The neural processor mimics and interprets these signals. I can stimulate almost any part of the brain with the right program. The mind is everything. Manipulate a mind, and you manipulate the entire world as far as that person’s concerned. This is how your Applied Sims programs convince you you’re an animal, or trick you into thinking you’re in an artificial landscape. “

Text flashed across Tom’s vision as the program ended. He noticed for the first time the lumpy, grayish-green appearance of the nutrient bar, and dropped it, revolted. Without a mental image of a food he liked, it just looked the way it really did: like something someone had digested and then puked up again.

Blackburn, meanwhile, was calling Karl Marsters to the stage. The large, jowled Genghis mounted the stairs, and Blackburn said something in a low voice to him, then typed on his forearm keyboard. Another line of text flashed across Tom’s vision:
Datastream received: program Fight-or-Flight initiated
.

Suddenly, Tom was at his wit’s end. He wasn’t going to stick around to see what Blackburn hit him with next. He tried to bolt out of the room, but Karl Marsters was waiting for this, and he caught him. Fury exploded through Tom. He had to
kill this guy
! He punched Karl across the jaw, hard. Karl bellowed out, and raised his massive fist to punch him back. Blackburn stepped in and caught his arm.

“Knock that off.” He shoved Karl back. Then, with a few strokes on his keyboard, he ended the program.

Karl glowered at Tom menacingly and rubbed his jaw.

More programs followed. A manipulation of his limbic cortex, and Tom fell in madly love with Blackburn’s podium. Just as he threw his arms around it and pledged his eternal devotion, Blackburn targeted his hippocampus, and Tom lurched back away from the podium, utterly perplexed. He’d forgotten everything from the last year. He started demanding explanations as to why he was in this strange room with these strange people, and where was his father? A program targeting the amygdala made him react to the podium again, but this time, he was deathly terrified of it. Karl grabbed him and tried forcing him to get closer to it, so Tom drove his elbow back into Karl’s stomach, doubling him over. Karl roared out and started after him again, but Blackburn stepped in his path.

He must’ve terminated the virus, too, because Tom’s head cleared. He found himself staring at the decidedly unmenacing podium, his heart pounding, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He spun around and saw Blackburn warning Karl, “Get a hold of that temper, Marsters.”

Karl’s face was bright red, his massive fists clenched at his sides. “But, sir, he—”

“Is half your size and under the influence of malware, and he still got the slip on you. Twice. That’s
your
problem, not his. Sit down.”

Karl threw Tom a look of death and stalked from the stage.

Blackburn turned and surveyed Tom, where he was trying to regain his bearings. “Holding up there, Raines?”

Tom glanced at the audience, where some trainees were trying to smother their laughter. His cheeks burned. He deliberately stepped closer to the stupid podium, just to show that he really wasn’t afraid of it—but not too close, because he wasn’t in love with it, either. “I’m great, sir.” He wasn’t going to plead for this to stop, if that’s what Blackburn was hoping for.

“Thatta boy.” Blackburn turned back to the class and typed again. “One last virus, then. This targets the cerebral cortex: higher cognition and sense of self.” The program hit.
Datastream received: program Agitated Canine initiated
.

Tom spent the last five minutes of class convinced he was a dog. He barked and crawled across the stage. In front of everyone. With 137 trainees laughing at him. The firm belief he was a dog stayed with him even after class ended, when a couple of the older trainees were determining what to do with him.

“Blackburn said it’d only be a few minutes more. I’ve got time to wait it out. Try scratching behind his ears. My dog Buckley always liked that,” Elliot Ramirez was saying.

Tom realized himself suddenly: he was sitting on the ground between Elliot and Heather, and Elliot was patting his head. He leaped to his feet, his cheeks burning.

“Two legs again?” Elliot observed. “Feeling better, or is this your way of asking for a treat?” He chuckled at his own joke.

Tom flushed. He was aware of Heather giggling, and felt distinctly unmanly. To his mortification, she rose to her feet, reached out, and rubbed his shoulder. “Aw, that’s a good boy.”

“Thanks,” Tom said drily. “Thanks a lot, Heather.”

“Don’t be embarrassed, Tom,” Heather said sweetly, while Elliot just kept chuckling good-naturedly behind her. “You really did make an adorable puppy.” She leaned a little closer. “And you should probably stay clear of Karl for a few days if you can help it.”

Tom’s cheeks still burned as he stalked down the aisle, and just as he reached the door, he met Blackburn coming back into the room.

The lieutenant slowed, his gaze sweeping over him. “Still holding up?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? Sir?” Tom said shortly.

“A fine show of bravado.” Blackburn considered him thoughtfully. “You know, Raines, if a rogue hacker gets away with minor security breaches on my watch, it calls into question whether they can get away with major security breaches, too. Likewise, if a plebe gets away with hiding that hacker’s identity from me, it encourages him to continue defying my authority in the future.”

“You’ve made your point.”

“I hope so. Well, Raines, misguided as it was, I still respect your commitment to protecting a fellow trainee. That took stones. Now shoo, get out of my sight.”

T
OM WAS ALMOST
mollified by Blackburn’s parting words. At least, he was until he stepped into the mess hall and laughter greeted him. That’s when he began cursing Blackburn with all his heart. Then Karl offered him a slice of bacon. “Here, Lassie,” with a menacing gleam in his eyes like he was just hungry for an excuse to pummel him.

Now that Tom really had a chance to look at him, Karl’s profile flashed before his eyes:

At least I got to punch him
, Tom thought venomously, and forced himself onward instead of jamming the bacon down Karl’s throat. He arrived at the Alexander male plebe table, and found Yuri standing with Wyatt, trying to coax her into sitting down with them.

“You are always sitting alone,” Yuri said. “There is no need. You can join us.”

She shook her head, arms crossed over her chest. “It’s not my table. I should sit with my division.”

“Why?” Vik called back to them, mouth full. “No one in Hannibal Division talks to you.”

Wyatt glared at his back.

Yuri was more diplomatic. “This is not morning meal formation. No one cares about assigned seating.”

Wyatt made no effort to lower her voice. “But, Yuri,
Vik
sits with you. I don’t like Vik.”

“Hey,” Vik protested, looking over his shoulder, “Vik is two feet away from you.”

“You call me Man Hands.”

“I only point out the obvious facts, such as the manliness of your hands and the way your division—” Vik stopped mid-sentence when he spotted Tom, hanging back with his tray. Wyatt’s dark eyes moved to him, too, and widened. She closed her mouth tightly, as if biting back whatever she wanted to say.

“Timothy,” Yuri said softly, “you look troubled.”

“Really? Why would that be?” Tom sniped. “Maybe something to do with Programming?” He realized only after dropping into his seat that Yuri couldn’t know what happened. Already, he was zoning out, staring into space, his face cloudy.

Awkward silence hung on the air. Then Wyatt blurted, “How was being a dog?”

Tom scowled. “Great, Wyatt. Really great. I love looking like a moron in front of hundreds of people.”

Vik and Wyatt watched him with grim expressions. And then, Vik’s lips twitched. And twitched more.

“And I can’t figure out why he kept programming me to obsess over his stupid podium,” Tom ranted on. “Maybe
he’s
fixated on the podium, huh?”

Vik’s entire face spasmed.

“And thanks for leaving me there, by the way, you guys. I got to wake up to Elliot Ramirez stroking my hair! You know what I want to wake up to? Gosh. How about anything other than some guy stroking my hair?”

“Look on the bright side,” Vik said, his voice choked. “At least Blackburn didn’t add an algorithm to make you start humping anyone’s legs, or, you know, the podium.” He might’ve been trying for something genuinely consoling, saying that broke his self-control. He burst into laughter.

Wyatt pressed her palm over her lips, too.

“Glad this is funny to you people,” Tom said.

But Vik was doubled over, and Wyatt’s shoulders were shaking, and suddenly Tom’s black mood broke, and he found his lips pulling up in a grin. Just like that, it was funny to him, too.