Rupture by Curtis Hox Page B

Beckwith, and he was terrified. Worse, and Carol West would later explain this to her concerned parents over and over again, he was walking backward, except his head had twisted all the way around so that he faced her. When she realized the arms reaching to her for help were on backwards as well, Carol screamed like she never had before and bolted. Carol’s parents lived in a fashionable legal villa in a fashionable gated community outside the arcology hives of Atlanta, and she owned a very fast Porsche, which she started right up and programmed to drive away before the school went into lockdown.
    * * *
    Joss hated to see her go, really hated to. In fact, he cried all the way back to the bleachers, but only tripped once.
    He’d wanted to ask her to get him some ice cream.
    It would help sooth his throat.
    He sat in a lawn chair under the bleachers he’d been in since last night, when he’d escaped the clinic. His arms hung down his back, and his head hung low between his shoulder blades. He wept because of what had happened to him, but not from pain. Somehow the metamorphosis of his body had stopped hurting. When he’d awoken in the clinic bed, though, he’d thought fire ants were eating through his skin. If Nurse Betty hadn’t been such a TV addict, he never would have escaped.
    He’d yanked out the dendrites connecting him to the wall and the school’s cyber-system. He cried tears of anguish as he ran away because he knew the Rogues had stolen something from him before they had sucked their long tendrils back inside the system. The Rogues had stolen part of his self, the good part, the part that would have stopped him from wanting to embrace them. He looked at the brands on his palms and back and knew he needed help. Otherwise, how much longer could he resist? He had an urge to brand the entire world ... and everyone in it.
    I’m becoming a Rogueslave.
    When grounds-keeper Ralph, Coach Buzz, and Principal Smalls approached in one of the school’s golf carts, Joss stood so they could see him. They pulled up behind the bleachers and all cursed at the same time. Joss was happy to see Coach Buzz up and about. Since getting killed in a glad match and being rejuved, he’d only been back on campus a week or so. He was dressed in a black woolen robe that hid his hands and feet and made him look like some mendicant friar in need of a bath. His long hair hung in strands from his head, nearly covering his face. His skin was sallow, as if he’d never been in the sun a day in his life.
    “I know,” Joss said. “Look at me.”
    Principal Smalls stumbled out like he might faint. “What in heaven’s name ...?”
    “What did that?” Coach Buzz asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
    Ralph chewed on his bottom lip. “Don’t matter to me. I’m not staying ‘round for this.” He spun on his heel and took off for the other side of campus where he could hide in peace, maybe sip some of that moonshine that was always passed around.
    Principal Smalls grabbed hold of a load-bearing post to steady himself. He had probably never seen the result of an RAI branding, or even thought that really happened. Joss’s deformity was uncommon, even for high-functioning intellects like him with a penchant for cysystems. That was why everyone was looking at him as if he were …
    A group of students approached, enough of them that there was no way now to keep this a secret.
    Principal Smalls swatted at his sweaty face, as if that might help.
    “You all right?” Coach Buzz asked Joss.
    Joss groaned.
    The students crowded around the far end of the track, unsure what they were looking at.
    “Oh, no,” Joss said. He accidentally bent forward, as if to put his head in his hands, except his face now looked upward and his hands reached out behind him. “Damn! I keep doing that!”
    Coach Buzz turned away, as if he were looking at someone being brutalized.
    “Get in, Joss,” Coach Buzz said, pointing to the cart. “Let’s go before