Freaks Like Us

The next half hour passed in an extremely rushed blur. Mr. Jericho signed me out, under the stern gaze of the receptionist who, if anything, looked angrier than she did before. Her frown deepened further when her statement of, “Only her legal guardian can sign her out,” was answered with a stern, “I am her legal guardian.”

I of course was shocked at this, seeing as I had only agreed to go with him not even a full minute before hand but I guess if he had the ability to issue a worldwide test, and get it scored in a matter of months, he had the authority to sign a single teenager out of school.

After I was properly signed out I was led to a very official Lincoln Town car and drove to my house where I was told to pack only underwear, entertainment, a couple of relaxation clothes, bathroom essentials, and a couple of items that I couldn’t live without. Once that was done, and my decidedly medium sized suit case was shoved into the decidedly humongous trunk, I climbed back into the car for the half hour drive to the airport.

Once there I hugged goodbye to my family, who had apparently been told I had accepted the offer and were all crying their eyes out at the fact I had done so, even though they had given me permission. I also took time to remind them that this trip would maybe be as long as the trips I took over the summer to my aunt’s horse farm, and that they never had any problems with me going there, before I was led onto the runway and into a very fancy private plane.

We were in the air two seconds before I fell asleep in the comfy plane seat; and yes comfy and plane seat were just used in the same sentence, this will probably be the one and only time that that will ever happen.

The next thing I remember after that was Mr. Jericho shaking me awake and handing me a menu that contained a long list of food that I’m pretty sure is not standard airplane food. I asked for a glass of lemonade and peanuts, what can I say, I like the classics. Before explaining to Mr. Jericho why I did not order a coke like the four other children he had escorted to the Experiment base. He seemed shocked when he found out I didn’t like caffeine because it gave me headaches before he pulled out his laptop and quickly typed something in, my guess is it was about my drink preference.

Getting my lemonade and peanuts, I ate them quickly before I promptly fell back asleep, only waking up when the lemonade made it to my Blatter, after doing my business I fell back asleep. I might not sleep all that much at night, but I did take my sleep whenever else I could get it.

The next time I woke up it was to the jarring feeling of the wheels of the plane hitting the ground, causing me to not only bite my tongue but give a squeak, something that I did that my friends often mocked, and caused Mr. Jericho to chuckle.

I grabbed my backpack, yes my bright pink one with the bells attached, and followed Mr. Jericho off of the plane, across the runway, and into a very brightly lit building where I came to a dead stop.

“Ah Ms. Williams, I would like you to meet the four other children who will be on your team, and will be your friends, during the duration of the experiment.” He didn’t seem to notice the five glares that were directed at him for not only calling us children, but also for assuming that we were going to be friend. “These are the four children who had higher test scores than you; Ms. Largo actually only beat you by one point!”

I took one look at the four kids in front of me and mentally slapped myself for accepting the offer. Of course these were the four people who were smarter than me, and of course they were all gorgeous. Even with their death glares and scowls, I could tell they were gorgeous, and I had no right to have brought my average looks little self into their beauty party.

Mr. Jericho seemed to sense the awkward vibes that happened to be going off all around him, because he took the opportunity to clear his throat in that way that people do when they are faced with their ex and their new girlfriend/boyfriend/ significant other. “Well, I’ll leave the four of you to show Ms. Williams around. Then you are to report to your class rooms to begin your studying.” With that the one, and only person I knew, turned and left me standing in the middle of a brightly lit, sterilely clean, and awkwardly quite hall facing four people who I would probably piss off in the next thirty seconds, with my bright pink back pack and bright blue suit case.

After about ten seconds of starring at each other the only girl in the group stepped forward and held out her hand. “Casey Largo, apparently I only beat you by one point and I am going to be your new best friend.” She said, her voice mocking the sophisticated tone Mr. Jericho used in that way people do when they aren’t actually making fun of them.

Casey was beautiful, with dark skin and light hair, she was tall and thin in the way that screamed athlete. Her brown eyes were shining out above her very well defined cheekbones and her smile was warm and wide.

I laughed for the appropriate duration of time; apparently I have a tendency to find things overly humorous, before I reached out and took her hand. “Aries Williams, and yes my star sign is actually Aries.” I told her, completely failing at making a joke.

However, Casey and the three boys behind her laughed as she dropped my hand and motioned for the boys to move forward. “These are the boys, James and Aiden Gilligan, yes they are brothers and yes they’re twins, James scored three points higher on his test than Aiden, who scored five higher than me; and this is Lucas Cofer, he scored the highest in the world, and beat James by 21 points.” Casey quickly introduced me.

James and Aiden were exact copies of each other, both with dirty blond hair and bright green eyes, they were tall and thin, but well-muscled in a way that screamed either football player or wrestler or both. I would put them at 6”.

Then I turned my attention to Lucas and felt my eyes go wide.

He was perfect. Tan and tall, he had well defined muscles that stopped just short of sickening. His black hair was perfectly unintentionally styled in a way that screamed “I don’t care about what you have to say about me” and his teal blue eyes were warm. He seemed to be 6”3’ and was defiantly a quarter back if I ever saw one.

And I was probably staring at him in a way that said tween-pop star-worship. Pulling my eyes away from is perfection was oddly hard, and when he spoke I had to fight the urge to stare at him again. “It’s nice to meet you, now we should probably get on with what J-dog told us before we get yelled at.” His voice was smooth like aged whiskey, and I only make that comparison because part of my family is from Texas and they are insane enough to give a, at the time, 13 year old a sip of said whiskey.

Nodding my head I grabbed the handle of my bag and started to follow the others through the building, trying to simultaneously memorize the rout and not stare at the hot boys. “Don’t worry, it took me some getting used to as well; they seem to be a bit too sexy for their own good. And the worst part is they don’t even seem to notice it.” Casey’s voice pulled me out of my mental lecture of why I couldn’t stare at the boy’s butts and caused me to laugh.

“So how long have you been here? I mean how long have you been doing nothing, since Mr. Jericho said you haven’t been doing school work.” I asked, speaking the first thing that was on my mind since the rest of it was a total blank. To say I wasn’t good in new situations is an understatement.

The boys seemed to have heard since it wasn’t Casey who answered, but Aiden, or was it James? They looked way too much alike! “There’s a pretty cool game room, apparently they had it installed the second they decided to use, and I quote, ‘unruly teens’ for the Experiment. Mostly we spend our time there, and since we aren’t allowed anywhere without each other, except our rooms, we spend a lot of time together.” He explained as we turned another corner and I gave up hope of ever finding my way anywhere without one of them. I was hereditarily really good at getting lost, my entire family could get lost in a bathroom.

After that the boys sped up and I stuck to talking to Casey while we wound our way through the amazingly intricate series of halls.

“I’m actually really glad you decided to come, apparently the next person after you is a guy, and if you hadn’t come we would have had to ask him, and then I would have probably been the only girl on the team.” Casey told me, speaking for just the right amount of time for me to pick up a familiar accent in her voice.

I smiled at her words as I tried to get the bells on my backpack to stop jingling in the otherwise empty halls, wheel my bag behind me, not get completely lost, and not end up on my face due to my multitasking. “How did the selection process work exactly? I understand that we took that test and all, but who graded all of those tests? And why did it pick us? I honestly doubt I did that good, especially seeing as I didn’t have science until the following semester, and most of the questions generated were based on the classes I have yet to take.” I asked as we thankfully came to a door that Lucas opened, and held, for the rest of us to step through.

He was such a gentlemen! And oh my gosh, I am that tween- pop star- worshipper! And that’s not to mention the fact that I almost completely missed Casey’s answer to my question, which consisted of a shrug and an “I have no idea.”

Wheeling my suitcase through the door I stopped in what appeared to be the main room, and I only say that because it had a laptop desk, comfy looking couches, and a large screen TV. Also the fact that a hallway with five rooms branched off of it, each room was labeled with a nameplate, one of which bore my name.

“Alright, so the TV in here doesn’t work, we asked J-dog what it was for but he wouldn’t tell us, the current theory is that it’s secretly a surveillance camera.” Aiden, I think, said as he walked through the room and pushed open the door that said Aiden, which means I got his name right!

Lucas and James went to their respective rooms, with Lucas sticking around just long enough to hear Casey say she had me covered.

I followed Casey into the room that had my name on it and came to a dead halt. “That’s my comforter, I left that at home!” I gasped as I stared at the pink, turquoise, and brown floral print bedspread. After the initial shock of seeing the comforter, I turned my attention elsewhere, meaning on to the cat rug my Nana made for me before she died. From there my attention went to the neatly hung pictures that were on the wall, and the framed photos that were stacked on the familiar silver trunk that held my nail polish collection. “I left all this stuff at home! How did it get here?” I asked Casey as I dumped my backpack on the bed and did a full circle.

Other than the familiar items the room contained an empty bookshelf, an empty set of drawers, and two other doors, both of which led to unknown locations. The room was sterilely white and the artificial light was harsh as it shined down into the windowless bedroom.

Casey, when I returned my attention to her, was grinning. “The Powers-That-Be flew them up here; oh that’s what we call the company who set this all up. Anyways, I guess they don’t want us getting home sick or something, so they fly some of our things up here once we accept, that’s how we knew you were coming, that and your name appearing on the door.” Her voice was cheerful as she lifted my suitcase and dumped it on the bed, unzipped it, and flipped open the top, only to come face to face with my teddy bear.

She, however, didn’t seem to notice as she picked the bear, my baby blanket, (I didn’t want to get homesick!) and my squishy pillow out of my bag and put them on the bed. “So we each have a closet and bathroom, both of which are personal. All of our closets are already stocked with clothing in our size, don’t ask how they got it, I don’t know. The clothes are what we have to wear when in class or during one of the procedures, the ones where we wear for the procedures are actually the weird white things in the back, but other than that we get to wear whatever we want, there is no dress code. We get to sleep, or chill, until twelve when we have to report to the cafeteria for lunch, at one lunch ends and we head off to classes- at least that’s the schedule starting now!” She told me as she grabbed the five pairs of shoes I had brought with me and dumped them in the walk in, that’s right walk in, closet.

While she was doing that I grabbed the clothes I had brought with me and started to put them in the drawers, managing to fill up one before I ran out of clothing, hopefully they had a washer machine- and instructions on how to use said machine. The bottom of my suit case was lined with books, which were quickly filed on the shelves. Grabbing my make-up bag and hair straightener I went towards the other door.

Pushing open the door I came to a hard stop, again, when I saw the bathroom. The counter across from the door was bare, save for a soap dish and soap, and the large mirror reflected me back at myself. Turning my head to the right I saw a large bathtub, with my pink and lime green striped bathroom curtain hanging on the pole. My favorite shampoo, conditioner, body wash, face wash, and shaving cream brands were neatly stacked on the shower caddy, and my razor was sitting on the side of the tub.

Stepping into the bathroom I dropped my stuff on the counter before turning to see Casey grinning at me yet again, it was starting to get a little creepy. “Cool right? They get all our favorite stuff and what they didn’t get you can use this for.” She told me as she picked a little tablet like thing up off of the bed, weird how I hadn’t notice that before. “You just type in whatever you want and it gets delivered to your room, including food. Also it controls the lights and the temperature, and it gets internet, TV, and Netflix! This thing does everything, and you have to bring it with you everywhere, it has a map on it, so if you get lost you can find how to get back.” She told me before she presented the tablet to me.

Taking it I ran my fingers over the screen and felt a huge smile cross my face. I might be hopeless with computers, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that this was some impressive technology. “Thanks Casey,” I told her as I lifted my head from the tablet and flashed a smile back at her.

“No problem, now I have to go get changed into the outfit that the Experiment provided, you have to do the same. If you need anything from here on out, just ask your tablet and it’ll tell you. Just don’t ask for something while naked, because if the tablet doesn’t know it, it’ll connect you to a person and that is so awkward.” She told me as she moved towards the door, her hazel eyes gleaming with remembered embarrassment. Smiling, and wincing, at the thought I told Casey I would see her in a few.