The Academy

New Roommate

The Goddard building was a loud and rowdy dorm. As I walked up the long flights of steps leading to the fourth floor, I saw many of my new dorm-mates laughing and joking with each other. But their behavior went far beyond any male behavior I had ever seen in the few society parties Kristopher and I had attended. The RoyalAcademy cadets made rude remarks, told dirty jokes, passed gas, spit, scratched themselves in unmentionable areas, and punched each other frequently.

I tried not to stare as I went, but it was hard to understand their actions. Kristopher never acted like this-even in the privacy of our home he was always the perfect gentleman. I watched, bewildered, as one student grabbed another around the neck and rubbed his victim's scalp vigorously with his knuckles shouting, "Noogies!"

"Let go! I give, I give!" shouted the other boy, but he didn't sound unhappy. In fact, both of them seemed to be enjoying the rough contact. Why? It was a mystery to me. I wondered how in the world anyone could enjoy hitting someone else or getting hit. Also, how could they study with all this noise going on? Competing music blared from several different rooms, almost but not quite drowning out the masculine shouts and laughter of the roughhousing cadets.

I was relieved, when I reached the fourth landing, to see that most of the noise had been left behind on the previous three floors. There were a few doors cracked with quiet music coming from inside but no one was out in the hallways shouting or punching or giving 'noogies'. Maybe this area was for serious students who genuinely wanted to study. I fervently hoped so, anyway.

Walking down the hallway, I read off the room numbers until I found the plain wooden door marked four-oh-eight. Above the door lock, which blinked red, was a small black ID pad. Remembering Hinks's promise that it would be keyed to my print, I pressed my thumb to its flat surface and waited. For a moment I thought it wasn't going to work. Then with a faint beep-beep-boop, the lock glowed a steady green as the door clicked open.

The room was deserted but it was clear someone else had already moved in. I looked with dismay at the personal items scattered around the room and the handmade quilt on one of the narrow twin beds. Hinks had never said anything about a roommate. In my naiveté, I had assumed that I would have a room of my own, just as I did back home. Was there going to be no place on campus I could relax as my true self?

Apparently not. With a sigh, I dropped my rucksack along with the pile of uniforms and boots on the unmade bed and went to look around. On a desk opposite the two twin beds was a small holo-pic, about the size of my palm. I picked it up and studied it.

It showed two boys, one clearly older than the other, with their arms around each other and smiles on their faces. The elder boy was tall and clean cut with dark golden hair, piercing blue eyes, and sharp, well-defined features. He had his arm around the younger boy who shared the same hair and eye color, making me think they must be brothers.

But something was wrong with the younger brother-he was twisted somehow, his smaller body hunched in a strange posture that made me turn the holo this way and that, trying to see exactly what was wrong with him. Did he have some kind of mutation or disease? Such things were highly unusual now that almost any deformity could be cured in utero. So then why did he look like that? Why-?

"Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my room?"

I jumped and nearly dropped the holo-pic in my panic. Fumbling to put it back, I turned to see the tall golden-haired young man-clearly the older brother in the pic-standing in the doorway with a frown on his aristocratic features. He was even taller than Broward and considerably more muscular-I couldn't help noticing that his shoulders were fully twice as broad as my own. In his earlobes studs of pure platinum and onyx winked, a mute testament to the wealth and privilege I could read on his face.