Wired (4 page)

“Maybe we'll still get to have it like normal,” he responded, clearly inspired by a sudden burst of optimism. He gestured toward the paper one last time and, convinced Gaia didn't mind parting with it, tucked it under his arm and loped away.

“Right, like normal,” Gaia muttered to herself.

A few months ago Gaia wouldn't have even dreamed of going to the prom. Prom was for girls like Megan and Tammie and the other FOHs, girls who knew about things like using “products” and about the
benefits of eyelash curlers. Gaia's idea of getting ready for school was to fish out her least wrinkled sweatshirt from the pile on her floor.

But something had happened to Gaia slowly, steadily, in the time she'd been at the Village School. No, she hadn't impressed her teachers with her photographic memory—she was absent too often for anyone to be blown away by her intellect—but she
had
managed to somehow end her seventeen-year stint as Gaia the Unkissed and venture into the territory of Gaia the Girlfriend. Oh, sure, two of her three love interests had either been kidnapped or otherwise tortured by her uncle and the various other evil forces acting on her life, and the third had just tagged along for a search-and-rescue mission to
Siberia
, but why quibble?

No, the point was that somehow, Gaia was slowly learning to fit in. She'd made a handful of friends and even gone to a party or two. And the new girl in school, Liz Rodke, seemed distinctly interested in getting to know Gaia. What did all
that
mean?

Maybe, just maybe, it meant that Gaia ought to reconsider the prom. The truth was, she
liked
feeling accepted by the FOHs. It was easy enough to pretend you didn't care what those girls thought of you, especially when you knew that nothing you said or did would make you one of them, but lately they'd been
warming to her. Maybe her new fear gene came special with a side of insecurity, but whatever it was, it was urging her to eke out every last possible drop of normalcy. After all, Gaia knew—maybe better than anyone—that this “real girl” stuff that she had fought so hard to acquire could disappear in a heartbeat.

And before that could happen, she was going to prom.

Her mind made up, Gaia rose, bringing her untouched food tray over to the disposal area. She dropped it on the conveyor belt, bidding a lackluster farewell to the Italian surprise, and turned to leave the lunchroom…

Bumping directly into Jake Montone as she did.

“Hey,” she managed, quickly taking in his trim build, accentuated by a light gray sweater and jeans. The sight of her boyfriend still made her throat catch. Of course, that had been true long before she'd begun to experience fear.

“Hey,” he said, slightly nervous. Clearly the awkwardness of last night's argument hadn't completely passed. “You weren't outside world lit before.” He gave her a half smile that said he wasn't sure how to make things better between them, a feeling that Gaia could relate to.

“Oh, she let us out early,” Gaia babbled. He had waited for her? He wanted to make up? She had
dodged him all morning, not sure of what to say to compensate for the awful conversation of the night before. “Jake, I—”

“Me too” Jake agreed, cutting her off but looking visibly relieved. “I know we both said some stuff we shouldn't have said. I mean, he's your uncle, for chrissake.”

Gaia was torn. Jake was obviously as eager to put last night's weirdness behind them as she was, but she got the distinct impression that Jake was telling her he forgave her for being suspicious of Oliver. The problem was that Gaia didn't want Jake to forgive her; she wanted him to understand her. She wanted him to trust her when she told him that she thought Oliver was dangerous. If Gaia and Jake were now headed toward reconciliation, it wasn't exactly on Gaia's terms.

“Jake,” Gaia replied quietly, wondering even as the words came out of her mouth if she was shooting herself in the foot. “I should tell you that I meant what I said”

Jake's eyes darkened. He looked distinctly displeased with this comment. “Jeez, Gaia, here I am trying to compromise, trying to make things right again, and all you can do is stick to your paranoid point? Nice.”

“No! It's just…”
It's just what, Gaia? It's exactly that. You had a fight with your boyfriend, and now he's trying to make up with you, and you can't even meet
him halfway
. Gaia swallowed. She knew that by agreeing with Jake, she was perpetuating the misunderstanding, possibly making things substantially worse in the long run. But she couldn't bear to leave things on bad terms, and nothing short of pretending to see things his way was going to solve the problem, it seemed. “You're right. I was overreacting, and I didn't want to hear you tell me so. Let's just forget about it for now.” She pasted a bright, conciliatory smile across her face.

“Don't just say that, Gaia, because you think it's what I want to hear. That's not going to get us anywhere.” Jake was not to be easily placated.

So much for feminine wiles.

“Hey, don't be so serious,” she chided, trying to lighten the mood. “I'm just saying, you're right. Isn't that what guys live to hear? That they're right?” She slid an arm around his waist and directed him down the hall toward their next class.

As Gaia laced his fingers through her own, he kissed her on the top of her head, sending shivers down her spine. “You're right,” he conceded. “I'm a sucker for a beautiful girl telling me what I want to hear. You've figured out my weak spot.” Jake was obviously more partial to a contrite and touchy-feely Gaia than to a stubborn, hard-ass Gaia, with or without fear.

Gaia allowed herself to relax as they walked down the hall. To the casual observer they looked like any other happy couple. She knew how to play the part these days; fear was good for that, at least. If she could keep it up, she'd have her wish: she'd be a normal girl with a normal—albeit amazingly hot—boyfriend.

If
she could keen it up.

“I CAN'T LET YOU DO THIS.”

Chris Rodke looked up questioningly to see his sister gazing down at him with deadly intent. “Huh?” he asked. He couldn't imagine what he was doing that would engender such a response.

“Seriously, man. Put the fork down and step away from the surprise. Nothing good ever came from an Italian surprise,” she warned, gesturing at his warmed-over lunch. He had to admit, it looked pretty unappetizing. “Surprise” was a wildly euphemistic term generally assigned to otherwise unidentifiable lunches. He and Liz were new to the Village School but not to high school life. Cafeteria food was a universal
constant. “Friends don't let friends eat cafeteria food,” Liz pronounced with solemnity.

“Sister, not friend,” Chris corrected.

“Jeez, and after saving you from a fate worse than—or at least equal to—food poisoning,” Liz griped teasingly, sliding into the seat next to him at his lunch table. “I'm feeling the love.” She peeled off the lid to a container of yogurt and waved it in front of Chris's nose. “Tamper proof,” she bragged.

He shrugged. “I like to live dangerously; what can I say? Besides, yogurt's, what—cultures? What the heck is a culture, and why on earth would you voluntarily ingest it?”

“I also live dangerously,” Liz replied. “Actually, I've had my fill of the fast lane for today. I came ten minutes late to chem this morning. That's enough dangerous living for me.”

It was true—Liz wasn't the type to miss class. “What happened?” Chris asked, genuinely curious.

“Nothing big. I got held up on my way to school.”

“Long line at Starbucks?” Chris teased. Liz liked her caffeine even if, as a general rule, she had a shred more original thought process than the girls who headed there daily in gaggles.

She frowned. “Yeah, actually. But that's not what it was. I went through the park this morning on my way to school, just for a change, ‘cause it was nice out.”

“You shouldn't go through the park early in the
morning,” Chris admonished. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. “It's—”

“Yeah, yeah, not safe for a little girlie-girl like me. See above reliving dangerously. Anyway, it was fine and totally populated. More populated than usual, in fact. That was the weirdness. There were, like, a million cops around, sort of investigating. You know, no stone unturned and all that.”

Chris stiffened slightly, but his sister didn't notice. “Did they say what they were looking for?” he asked, his tone flat.

“I think they're trying to get to the bottom of the Invince business. You know, figure out who God is. They were saying that people in the park are really strung out lately—I mean, more strung out than usual. That this Invince drug is worse than anything they've ever seen because it really makes people feel immortal. So I guess they're looking for the one who's selling it.”

“God,” Chris echoed thoughtfully.

“Yeah.” She nodded energetically, spooning up a bite of yogurt. “And there have to be people around who have seen him, who know what he looks like. You know, ‘cause there are obviously a lot of people in the park who've done Invince or who know where to get it. But no one's talking.”

“What did you tell them when they asked you about it?”

“What do you think I told them?” Liz asked her brother pointedly, turning her sky blue eyes on him full force.

“I told them I had no idea who they were looking for.”

Life itself was plenty absurd on its own.

IF THE GOD OF TEEN RELATIONSHIPS was smiling down on Gaia, then the delicate balance of high school karma dictated that the god of calculus, of course, was not.

Her little scene with Jake, directly following her meltdown outside Hëagen-Dazs the night before, had left her in no state of mind to worry about such trivialities as homework, but this was hardly something that she could explain to Mrs. Reingold, she of the fluffy sixties hairdo and take-no-prisoners attitude. Most of Gaia's teachers were not especially impressed by her… cavalier attitude toward school, to say the least. Mrs. Reingold in particular had her own hang-ups: she liked to collect assignments at the beginning of class rather than at the end—no fool, she—and she was not pleased with Gaia's extreme lack thereof. Now Gaia was on her hit list for the day.

“If you'll turn to page 176 in your textbooks,” she droned, “you'll see a selection of proofs, I'd like for us to work the top three out on the board. This should be simple enough for those of you who have done the assignment.” With this prediction, she glared directly at Gaia. In all fairness, Gaia had given her no reason to know that this proof would be simple enough for Gaia regardless—homework or no.

She slouched back in her seat, certain she'd be
called on to work out a proof at the board, but Mrs. Reingold nominated two other “volunteers” and Mindy White, who nearly gave herself an aneurysm, falling out of her seat, straining to be picked.
God bless her
, Gaia thought, relaxing back at her desk for the moment. Standing at the board would be tedious under the best of circumstances; she was thrilled to have a brief reprieve from her newfound social anxiety disorder.

Next to her Tammie and Megan whispered hurriedly to each other. Gaia could sense the bad vibes radiating off them in waves. She knew she'd damaged whatever currency she'd held among the FOHs when they spotted her with Liz Rodke, off to the Rodkes' mucho-exclusive black-tie affair. Gaia thought it was totally unfair that in order to fit in with one group, she was going to have to give up another. No wonder she had chosen to avoid Village School social politics up until now. It was just too exhausting trying to get the game right.

These days, though, she wanted to get the game right.

She took a calculated risk and edged her desk closer to Megan's, scraping against the linoleum floor as she did. She winced at the sound and prayed that Reingold had gone spontaneously temporarily deaf or something. “Hey,” she offered tentatively.

Megan turned briefly to Gaia, eyebrows raised,
before resuming her hushed conversation with Tammie.

Denied. Okay, well, she deserved it, she supposed. Gaia was preparing to accept her lot, to turn back to the math lesson, when she decided to go for broke and make a second attempt. She had nothing to lose, right? The teacher hated her, and she was obviously a social pariah.

She leaned in again. “How weird was it running into you guys the other night?” she whispered lightly, as if bumping into the FOHs on the street was the most unexpected, most hysterically random incident in the history of random incidents. As though they didn't all live downtown, frequent the same haunts, and run into each other by accident as a general rule. “I mean, come on. Liz only asked me at the very last second, and I wasn't even going to go”—here she knew she had to tread lightly since it was obvious the other FOHs
had
in fact, wanted to go—“but Liz had an extra spot because some date had bailed on her at the last minute, and she knew I was the lame-ass who wouldn't already have plans for the night. So, you know, I grabbed the one clean thing in my closet that was even remotely right for the event and offered to help her out.” Gaia felt like she'd been possessed by the spirit of a former head cheer-leader. Where was this vapid banter coming from? Why was it so important to her to win these girls over?

And most importantly, was it working?

Possibly it was. Tammie regarded the deliberately frayed pockets of her stretch Seven jeans before tilting her entire desk toward Gaia, relenting. “I liked the dress,” she said, in a tone that suggested she definitely
hadn't—
or at least wanted Gaia to
think
she hadn't.