Army of One Arc Part 3
Back to School
My first day of school. Would anyone believe it? Probably not.
I didn't want to go to school, especially not this school, so close to the place where I had been discovered by the girl, but it was the only feasible coverup available. And the quickest. It didn't matter anyway. I wouldn't be staying there much longer. There had been too many attacks in my GP area. The military was starting a search in the nearby town, and I couldn't afford to come under suspicion.
Since I was free to pursue my own course of action, I had looked into other ways to hide myself from the attention of truant officers or any other government officials. For a boy my age, school was simply the most reasonable place to be from eight in the morning to three in the afternoon. If I was seen anywhere else during those hours, it would raise suspicion. Still, I didn't want to go to school. I didn't want to do anything but sleep. Whenever I wasn't fighting, sleeping was my favorite thing to do, after all.
I was glad for the uniforms, although I had already heard many of the students complaining about them. The dark suits just made me one anonymous face among hundreds. Anonymity was exactly what I needed. Besides... the suits hid the scars. Most of them, anyway.
I hated to admit it, but I missed Duo already, and it had only been a week. Ever since coming to St. Gabriel's, I'd been alone. I would be more than happy to be ignored, but I couldn't go anywhere without people whispering, watching me, snickering and staring. It was as if I wore a sign that said: Outsider, not one of us. Stay away. Some marking I couldn't erase.
As I walked down the halls to my classes, I lowered my head and hid under my dark bangs. I kept my mouth shut. Anything to keep from drawing attention. But somehow, I kept getting it. Not good for the Mission.
When I first walked into the school, I found myself paralyzed. I wasn't afraid, never think that for a minute. Only overwhelmed for a second. I had walked right past the locker designated to me, and I was surrounded by laughing, bellowing teenagers. People my own age, people I had secretly yearned to be around all my life. Now that I was actually here, out of a lab and into the real world, I felt exposed, vulnerable, like a white rat let loose in the middle of a freeway.
I've rarely felt any combat situation from where I thought there was no escape, but this was definitely one of them. No training I had undergone could have prepared me for these three hundred faces that all seemed to be looking directly at me, all at the same time.
I could feel my heart, galloping in my chest. I couldn't seem to catch my breath, so I breathed harder and faster, trying to get air into my lungs, but it didn't work. Nothing worked. I felt the book I was carrying slip from my hand, but I didn't hear it hit the floor. Teachers and students filled the hall, talking and laughing. One of them could recognize me, I thought. One of them could sense what I was. One of them could know.
I wanted to hide. I wanted to run as far away from school and other people as I could. But I couldn't move. Couldn't get my feet moving, and my body would not obey my commands. I passed out, hearing the thud of my head hit the tiles.
Later, I was told that two teachers helped carry me to the first aid room.
The nurse in charge assumed I was having a panic attack from being a new student on my first day of school. Yeah, right.
"I'm fine," I muttered. I was lying down on a bed with paper pulled across the top of it. It crackled as I moved. Someone had taken my uniform jacket off, and my dress shoes were placed neatly together on the floor under the cot.
"Are you sure?" The nurse was an older woman, very prim-looking with black wire-rimmed spectacles and blue eyes. She had a kind face.
"Growing up and moving to a new place isn't easy, young man," she said, and I almost laughed. I didn't, but I felt like it. She was just so naive. "A lot of boys your age just don't feel ready to leave the nest, and going to school away from your parents must be very hard." She looked up my medical file on the computer, pulled directly from the colonies. Dr. Jaye had it set up before I left, to make sure there was no complications when I came to Earth.
"No heart problems, no diabetes, no history of severe pain or chronic problems of any sort, no fainting spells. No medical problems at all." She closed down my file on the computer and went over to the cabinets, getting two small white pills and a plastic cup of water. "Take these."
I sat up and took the pills into my hand, looking at them warily. "What are they?"
"Just aspirin."
Bullshit. What if she had seen the scars? What if the campus police were on their way, and she was trying to sedate me quietly, without using force? What if they took me in for questioning? "I don't need them."
"After hitting your head on the floor? Doesn't that bump hurt?"
"It's fine."
She scowled. "Well, just the same. As a precaution." I sat there with the pills for a minute, but she stood right over me, crossing her arms over her chest. I knew she wasn't going to go away until I took them, so I put the pills under my tongue and swallowed the water. They were bitter, dissolving slowly.
"Good boy. Hold still. I won't hurt you." She leaned forward and shined a penlight into my eyes, first the left one, then the right. She pulled back and looked at me for a long time. Didn't she have anything better to do? "Do you do drugs, dear?"
I didn't answer, but I could feel my expression twisting into a scowl. Was I offended? Not really, but it seemed like the correct reaction.
"It's strictly off the record," the nurse assured me. "Just between the two of us. I promise you won't be in trouble."
"No."
"You didn't get stoned last night?"
"No."
"No drinking?"
"No."
She lowered her voice. "There's another issue, Heero. The scars...."
"It's nothing."
She looked at me, eyes hard now. "Don't tell me it's nothing. You may not have been here long, but you've been here long enough. Young man, don't you sit there with old bruises on your face and scars on your shoulders and tell me that it's nothing." Her voice softened. "Who is the one that's been hurting you?"
I thought about all the pain I'd undergone since being a part of Project Apocalypse. All the cuts and bruises and broken bones.
Everyone, I thought.
But I had gone on Operation Meteor anyway. I had no choice. There was no question of not going. If Dr. Jaye and I stood at the top of a cliff and he told me to walk off of it, I probably would do it without thinking twice.
I didn't answer her question. She sighed softly, then gave me a card with a one-eight-hundred number on it. I looked at it for a moment, then pocketed it.
"That's a number to call if you ever want to talk about it,"she said softly, still looking at me. I met her gaze expressionlessly. "A hotline. And I'll always be in here, if you have something on your mind. You're not alone, Heero."
Give me a break, I thought, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. At least she meant well. If all she thought was that I was an abused child, I could live with that.
"All right," I said finally. Anything to get her off my back. Interesting she didn't mention the tattoos.
One of the other boys stuck his head in the door. "Nurse, I'm got a terrible headache..."
The nurse gave me one last look, then closed the white curtain in front of the cot, giving me privacy. I could hear her telling the other boy that two aspirin would probably help. Quietly, I took the pills she gave me out of my mouth and put them in my back pocket.
I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.
~*~
When I woke up half an hour later, I crept off to my co-ed gym class while the nurse was distracted. Horseback riding. Great. Why do people ride horses? That's why we have cars, planes, trains, and shuttles. So people don't have to ride them. So one of the most prestigious schools in Europe teaches it anyway. Go figure.
I walked to the stables and presented my pass to the teacher in charge. "All right, great then," he muttered something under his breath about foreign exchange students, but I didn't quite catch it.
He stopped and looked at me for a moment. "Do you speak English?"
// What kind of question is that? //
He scowled. "DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?!"
// If I couldn't, yelling wouldn't make me understand what you're saying. //
"DO...YOU....SPEAK....ENGLISH? Habla ingles? Tu parles anglais?"
"Yes."
His scowl deepened. "Well, bloody hell, why didn't you say so?"
I smiled a little. // Because it was funny. //
He gave me one last look, then said, "Your horse is in stable fifteen. Come along." I followed him down to the end of the row, where a white horse stood stamping its feet impatiently.
I said the first thing that came to mind.
"It's big."
The teacher looked over at me. "It's supposed to be big. Put on your helmet and riding boots. Then head out to Field C with the rest of your class. If you need help, I'll be watching the rest of them."
I forgot that most students that grew up in private boarding schools would have been expected to know all about this sort of thing by now.
And so he left me with this great stomping mess of an animal. Great. K'so. Why horseback riding? Why not racquetball? Or tennis? Or golf?
I can do golf.
I put on my riding boots and helmet, then stepped into the stable, being careful to stay away from either the head end or the tail end. With teeth at the head and metal-shod hooves at the rear, neither end seemed particularly appealing.
It's not that I don't like horses, it's just that they're a lot bigger up close.
"You are more scared of me than I am of you, aren't you?" I said to it, reaching up tentatively to touch a velvet ear. It flicked and I flinched, jumping backwards.
Objective One: Touch the horse for a period of more than .5 seconds without running away. Easier said then done when the biggest animal you've ever seen in your life was a dog.
This whole school thing was going to take some getting used to.
~*~
I tried to get to the locker room early, so I could dress in privacy, but I was too late. I'm not a prude or anything. It's just that people stare. Not even nanomachines can prevent scars.
The locker room was filled with the sound of running water and steam. I slid out of my suit jacket and unbuttoned my shirt slowly, pretending to be exceptionally interested in the school coat of arms painted on the wall.
When I looked up, two boys near me were staring at my back and arms and shoulders. Staring at the scars. The largest was a white, old scar that wrapped itself across my shoulder and around to my back. The newer scars, including the places were Duo shot me, were already healing, shiny and pink. My piloting scan and serial number was tattooed at the nape of my neck in dark green ink. More small numbers were listed down the middle of my back, twenty-nine in all. One for every operation. Phantom, Defender, Angel Star, Cain, Abel, Aura, Minotaur, Apocalypse, I knew the numbers of all of them. And the latest one was at the bottom, near the middle of my back: Meteor.
"Jesus fucking Christ, Yuy..." one of them whispered.
I looked at them mildly for a moment, then smiled a little. It felt as real as a three-dollar bill on my face. Forced and hard and grim, like rusty barbed wire. "Not me."
They stared back at me wordlessly. I guess I wasn't as innocent-looking as I liked to think.
I turned away from them. I started washing myself, thinking about the past...and how I always seem to turn away.
~*~
"Name, last-first."
"Codename: Yuy, Heero."
The man's fingers raced over the keys.
"Age-height-weight."
"Fifteen, five-five, one-forty-five."
I remembered the lab where I was registered. It was an echoing, sterile white place, just like the locker room. I could almost hear the other potentials. Boys and girls code- named and numbered. No one had names anymore. Questions were asked and answered. Potentials that failed the tests were pulled and never seen again. They screamed as they were dragged away.
There could only be one Perfect Soldier.
"Hup two, soldiers! Keep it lively! Step! Present your hands for scanning!"
~*~
I shook myself out of the daydream, feeling the water soak my hair and skin, rolling down my neck, across the tattoos and the scars. The rest of the boys had already gotten out of the shower, shouting and laughing and snapping towels.
The gym teacher stepped in and clapped his hands. "Hurry up. Yuy, what are you waiting for? C'mon, bell in five minutes. Get your asses in gear, boys." I sighed silently and turned the water off, shaking out my hair and grabbing a towel.
It was going to be a long couple of weeks.
TBC...
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