Galileo (Battle of the Species) (10 page)

His stomach growled and he considered running to find the mess hall before bed, but his sleep regulator let out another two beeps, blinking two blue lights. Renn settled in his bed, more concerned about what the device was about to do to him than his deprived stomach.

He crawled under the covers and tossed and turned, unable to get comfortable. He tugged at the blanket near his side and thought about his dog, Max. It was the first time he had gone to bed without him since he was eight and it felt awful. Renn took his pillow and rested it against his legs, taking comfort in the familiar weight. After a few minutes, his anklet gave another beep, flashing a green light through his blanket. He felt his eyes grow heavy and gave a big yawn, before drifting into a deep sleep.

CHAPTER 6

Simulation

The next morning, Renn took another shower for good measure, worried that he might still be plagued with a fish smell, and put on his white uniform. The outfit he was given looked like shapeless pajamas made of thin cotton and was two sizes too large, heavily wrinkled from having been slept in the night before.

He ran his hand over his arm, where the skin was raw from scratching in his sleep. Inside the sleeve, he found a coarse label that read, “Human. One size fits all. Made on Temin.” It explained the dismal quality of the uniform, Renn thought. His Temian roommates’ uniforms, however, were designed with intricate patterns and made of soft, durable material.　

Renn picked up one of Rudy’s thick, fitted thermals from off the floor, reading the label, “Made on Earth” — a label distinguishing the rich humans on Temin, who could afford to buy durable clothes from Earth, as opposed to the poor humans, who could only afford to buy mass-manufactured and chemically corrupted garments.

The only uniformity of the student body’s clothes was the color, leaving the style up to the individual for fit and self-expression. Unfortunately for Renn, his style currently screamed, “Poor industrial lemming, right here!” He cringed, hoping his dad would send clothes from Earth, preferably soon.

They left for the mess hall, leaving Ivan in the bathroom so he could spend extra time on his hair, making sure every hair was perfectly in place and up to his standards, or so he said.

Renn’s stomach growled while they made their way down the ship’s corridors.

They passed another hologram sign, advertising Battle of the Species, announcing the games for First Years would begin on the 34th, and Renn just about ran into a wall, unable to keep his eyes off of it. The sign displayed a boy in battle gear, standing on a rocky mountain planet with a scoreboard hovering in the sky. The scoreboard counted down from five, four, three, two, one. On “one,” a large, black beast with three eyes and four limbs, jumped out from behind a large hill of rocks and began an intense battle with the fighter.

Dylan followed his gaze and smiled. “Do you play BOTS?” Dylan asked.

“BOTS?” Renn asked.

“Battle of the Species.”

“I’ve never even heard of it,” Renn replied. “Is it really a game? I thought it was just fighting.”

“It’s a game only in that you can compete against other students. The longer you survive and the more clever your strategy is, the more points you win,” Dylan said.

“Do you win anything?” Renn asked.

“Yeah, bragging rights,” Dylan said with a grin. “In a school like this, you can’t ask for anything better.”

“Do you guys play?” Renn asked.

“No, they don’t have anything like that on Crystalline,” Leo said.

“No, but I bet I’d be really good at it,” Rudy added.

Renn grinned at Rudy’s optimism.　

“Yeah, I played it at my school on Temin,” Dylan said.

“Does everyone have to play?” Renn asked.

“No, the schools encourage everyone to participate as battle practice, but it’s not required,” Dylan explained. “If someone feels like playing, they can just sign up for the next battle and if they hate it, then they don’t sign up again. BOTS isn’t for everyone.”

Unbeknownst to Renn, another Mindeerian walked quietly behind him, not only listening curiously to their conversation, but bewildered at Renn’s thoughts.

Desh scrunched his brows, wondering why he could hear the blond’s thoughts at all, having sworn he saw the boy had vertical pupils. Renn’s thoughts floated in the air so freely that Desh wanted to stick a pin in the boy’s side just to see if his hands would spark. Mindeerians usually learned to block their own thoughts before they learned to speak. It didn’t make sense that a teenager wouldn’t be able to do it.

“What opportunities did you have to practice fighting on Earth?” Dylan asked Renn.

Opportunities?
Renn thought.
I’d hardly call a weekly ass-whooping by Jonah an opportunity…

Desh rolled his eyes as he watched Renn’s memory of a husky human beating on him in the woods.

“None,” Renn replied.

If Renn was human, Desh would have been more forgiving, but if he was of the same species, as far as Desh was concerned, Renn was the Mindeerian version of the village idiot. It then occurred to him that the boy could be mentally stunted, and Desh felt like an ass for judging him. If they allowed Zorgres to attend the Galileo, then they would accept a Mindeerian with a defective intelligence.
If he’s stupid, then he’s forgiven
, Desh thought to himself.

Desh and Kia had been waiting years to attend the Galileo and get the training they needed to become warriors. They had assumed that the other students would be like them, having spent their lives hunting and fighting. So far, the majority of First Years came across as adequate appetizers for the species they would be fighting.

When they walked into the mess hall, Desh took off for Kia’s table, leaving the odd Mindeerian/Earthling to fend for himself with his human friends.

Renn looked around the mess hall, finding it pretty full, despite how large it was. There were stairs leading to four different levels, for more seating. On the other side of the tables and chairs was a massive wall of windows overlooking the same view provided by every window on the ship: darkness with scattered specks of twinkling lights.

Renn followed Dylan and the others through a labyrinth of oddly shaped tables, presumably to accommodate the different body forms of the various species. There were backless chairs for those with tails and wings, heavy metal structures to hold the weight of the more robust students, and small bucket seats for students the size of a Sensatus.

The boys made their way to the windows on the bottom level, where a tiny cleaning-bot suctioned its last crumb atop an empty table and hopped off in search of another unoccupied mess.

Renn looked out the windows. “I thought we were in the belly of the ship,” he said.

“We are,” Dylan replied. “The windows are holograms.”

When they sat down, the boys lightly tapped the table top with their fingers, prompting a menu of species to pop up, with a question above it displaying, “What species are you?” 　

Renn wasn't sure whether to select “Human” or “Mindeerian,” until he realized he could choose both. At least Ava didn’t have a problem with crossbred species.

The screen changed to planets, inquiring what planet he wanted his food to come from, only listing the food which could be digested easily by a Human/Mindeerian body, yet there were still too many selections to choose from. He could order fried tempney from Linrovia, crockis omelets from Tenesh, althot pancakes from Parnote; the list went on and on. In the end, Renn chose a cheeseburger and fries from Earth. Having dinner food for breakfast seemed as wild and crazy as he felt like getting that morning.

“What are you ordering?” Rudy asked Dylan.

“A Vinian steak from Porth,” Dylan replied.

“I thought intelligent species were illegal to eat,” Leo said.

“Intelligent? Vinians eat their own poop,” Rudy said.

They began a debate about whether or not the species Dylan ordered was dumb enough to eat, but Dylan had already ordered something else the moment “poop” was mentioned.

Renn looked around, curious about where his food was going to come from, ruling out lunch ladies and waiters. At the table next to him, a compartment rose from the middle of the table and the students pulled a tray of food out, before the compartment lowered back into the table. Renn looked at his own table and saw the thin line where his own compartment was, barely distinguishable in the frosted glass.

Rudy was in mid-sentence, rambling something about tater tots, when he stopped, staring at an entrance with his mouth open. He looked down at the table, leaning into the guys in a whisper. “Hot girls, ten o'clock,” he said.

Dylan, Leo, and Renn looked in three different directions, since the ten o'clock on Temin, Crystalline, and Earth were located in different positions on each planet’s dial.

“The door on the port side,” Rudy said.

“Port’s right, isn’t it?” Leo asked.

“No, starboard’s the right side of the ship, like at sea,” Renn replied.

Rudy rolled his eyes. “Over there, guys,” he said, pointing to his left.

They turned, watching three human First Year girls standing there, scanning the room for an empty table. All three girls could easily be described as beautiful, but it was the petite brunette who caught Renn's attention. Her hair was made up in a loose bun and she stood with her toes pointing out, as if ready to break out into a pirouette. Her big brown eyes were warm and sweet, giving Renn a welcome sense of calmness he hadn’t felt since he left Camden the day before.

Her friends looked nothing like her, other than being human. One had long blonde hair, soft pink lips, and blue eyes the color of a robin’s egg.
The third friend had black skin and was tall and lean, giving her a statuesque appearance. Her hair was worn in long thin braids and then pulled up into one big ponytail. She looked athletic, tough even, despite being such a pretty girl.

All of the female students wore their class colors, but the girls, especially humans and Lucians, wore short dresses made of soft material, draping and flowing, heightening their femininity. With some species, it was the only way Renn could tell whether they were male or female.

The brunette dropped something, tried to pick it up, but bumped the door behind her with her butt, causing her to lose her balance. Her friends stopped her from falling on her face, as if anticipating her klutzy behavior.

Not the most graceful
, Renn thought smiling,
but incredibly cute, klutz or not
.

The brunette went back to scanning the room for a table and made eye contact with Renn.

He tried to focus on the voices when she leaned over to her friends and whispered, “Do either of you know who that blond is by the window?”

The girls looked over at Renn and shook their heads. “No,” they said.   

“School hasn’t even started and you’re already scoping for guys?” the blonde girl teased.

“I am not!” the brunette replied, smiling. “It's just that he’s staring!”

Renn looked down at his food, but tried to listen only to her voice.

The brunette looked over to Renn’s left at Dylan. “Hey, I know one of those guys!” she said, walking over. 

The other two girls looked at each other for a moment, then followed.

They walked up to the boys’ table, with the brunette getting shyer by the second. “Hi, I'm Meta,” she said when she reached the table, throwing unconscious glances at Renn.

Renn focused on her thoughts, while he took a sip of water, trying to play it cool.

He's so cute!
she thought. 

Renn inhaled a bit of water when he heard it and coughed. His face turned beet red when everyone turned to look at him.

Oh my gawd, he's Mindeerian.
He probably heard that. Stop thinking, Meta,
she said to herself. She looked at Dylan. “You're from Temin, right?” she asked.

“Yeah, Placsworth,” Dylan replied. “I thought you looked familiar. You used to take ballet with my sister, Heather, right?”

“Heather, yeah.”
I have no idea who Heather is
, she thought.

Renn grinned at her.

Stop thinking, Meta,
she thought to herself. She then looked over at her friends and the blonde responded to Meta’s pleading look. 

“Hi, I'm Lux, this is Joss,” the blonde said, pointing to her friend.

“How's it going?” Joss said.

The boys introduced themselves, while Rudy sat there drooling. After a few minutes, Lux's stomach growled and the girls left to find an empty table.

Renn noticed that the First Years seemed to be mostly grouped by species, creating cliques with others similar to themselves in appearance. The older students, however, were mixing species, creating their cliques with like personalities rather than like body forms.

Renn couldn’t help but look around the room for other Mindeerians, hoping there would be some his age, maybe even in his classes. He saw a group of Fourth Years in the far corner. He initially assumed they were human, until he saw one of them smile, revealing a distinct pair of fangs.

One of the boys at the table looked over and Renn heard, “
Hey there,
” in his own head. He jumped for a second, still unused to other Mindeerians projecting their voice into his mind.

Renn walked over to their table and introduced himself. There were two guys and one girl. The guy who spoke to Renn was named Tabit. Tabit was tall and athletic, with sandy blond hair and a chiseled jaw line. The guy sitting next to him introduced himself as Pyxis. He had chestnut brown hair and a very average face. Everything about him seemed average, like the kind of guy you forget about the second he walks away. The girl was Vela. She had black hair and olive skin with a turned up nose. She looked stuck-up until she smiled. She had a beautiful smile.

Tabit was talking about the upcoming Battle of the Species game, when Renn couldn’t help but think,
He’s cool,
and then realized they were staring at him as if he had just sprouted another eye.

“What?” Renn asked.