Tom opened his mouth to correct him, but Vik caught his eye and mouthed, “Don’t ask.”

“You got it,” Tom said, bewildered.

Yuri bellowed a hearty laugh. “It’s very fine to meet you. I’m Yuri—but this you know.” He tapped his own temple.

“Yeah, this I know,” Tom said.

“I do not see your achievements listed.”

“It’s a mistake. We’re getting that fixed,” Vik told Yuri.

“Uh, yeah,” Tom agreed.

A ping in his head. Morning meal formation is in five minutes. Tom was caught off guard by the sudden notice, plastered there in his brain like one of his own thoughts. The other boys in the room responded to the same notice. They all jumped to their feet. Beamer didn’t stay there long. He keeled right over again. Yuri caught him before he hit the ground.

“Ready?” Vik said to Tom.

Tom nodded eagerly, ignoring the butterflies fluttering inside him. “Ready.”

Yuri hauled Beamer up from the floor and hoisted him over one broad shoulder for the trudge down Alexander Division’s corridor to the elevator. He hummed merrily the whole way.

“I can walk,” Beamer protested blearily.

“You said that last time, and then you bopped your head,” Yuri told him. “This is no trouble, Stefan.”

Beamer raised his bleary head, and squinted back at Tom. “Huh. New guy doesn’t have any achievements.”

That stupid profile.

Vik sidled up to Tom. “Told you that would get annoying. Want it changed or not?”

“You said there’s a girl who can do that?”

“Wyatt Enslow,” Vik answered. “It’ll take some doing, but I can talk her into it.”

“Why does he think I’m Timothy Rodale?” Tom nodded toward Yuri’s large back.

Vik spoke in a normal tone of voice as though Yuri couldn’t hear them: “Well, there’s never been an official explanation for it, but Yuri’s scrambled. Something’s wrong with his software, and none of the officers want to fix it, which makes us think he’s scrambled deliberately. We figure the military thinks Yuri’s a spy, and they couldn’t keep him out of the Spire because he has family connections, so they admitted him and then planted a worm in his neural processor’s software so he can’t hear anything classified.”

Tom glanced at Yuri’s wide back, but Yuri hummed and showed no signs of having heard them. “His neural processor distorts the info he hears?”

“Exactly. From what Beamer and I have figured, he seems to understand the basics of the Spire, but not our identities, IPs, strategies, or anything that might compromise the war effort. His processor’s rigged so he doesn’t hear our real names if someone mentions them. And forget confidential info. I’ll show him some code from Programming, for instance, and he’ll look at it and know just what it is, then remember it all wrong. You know how we’re talking about him right now literally five feet behind him? Yeah, the processor’s interpreting it as something else entirely, I bet.”

“Seriously?” Tom was both impressed and disturbed. This was one thing he hadn’t even thought about. He should have realized having a computer in his brain made him susceptible to misprogramming like a computer. “Vik, if they mess with Yuri’s software, how do you know they can’t do something with ours?”

Vik shot him a creepy, unsettling grin, and his eyes gleamed like a madman’s. “Why, Tom, we don’t.”

“That’s reassuring. Thanks.”

“Anytime, pal. It’s what I’m here for.”

CHAPTER FIVE

THE PATTON MESS Hall was already crowded. Meal trays sat at each place on the rectangular tables. Tom looked over the crowd, identifying the division insignias on the arms: a quill for Machiavellis, an ax for Genghises, a sword for Alexanders, a musket for Napoleons, and a catapult for Hannibals.

Vik elbowed him, then nodded for him to follow. They headed toward what Tom’s neural processor identified as the Hannibal female plebe table. The girls all sat at one end of the table, talking to one another and ignoring a tall, gawky girl with flat brown hair sitting alone at the other end, her shoulders hunched, eyes darting furtively between the other girls and her tray.

“Hey, Enslow!” Vik called.

The girl looked up, her eyebrows drawn closely together in a solemn, oval-shaped face. Tom’s processor identified her as

NAME: Wyatt Enslow

RANK: USIF, Grade III Plebe, Hannibal Division

ORIGIN: Darien, Connecticut

ACHIEVEMENTS: Mathlete of the Year, Riven Middle School; twice annual winner, Scholar Mathlete Award; Gold Medalist, International Mathematical Olympiad; first place James Lowell Putnam Competition

IP: 2053:db7:lj71::335:ll3:6e8

SECURITY STATUS: Top Secret LANDLOCK-3

“You still helping out with profiles?” Vik asked her.

Wyatt’s lips compressed. “Feel free to shout louder, Vik. I don’t think Lieutenant Blackburn heard you on the officer’s floor. And no, I’m not doing that anymore. I almost got caught last time.”

“Come on, Enslow,” Vik urged. “Help Tom out. Yuri wants you to.”

“So why isn’t Yuri asking me himself?”

“He’s busy ambulating Beamer.”

“What do you guys want changed?” Her gaze settled on Tom. “Oh, that.”

“Yeah, that,” Vik said. “Someone forgot to program in Tom’s vast number of achievements.”

Tom glanced at him, fighting back a snigger. Yeah, his many great achievements. He beat lots of video games and even ate two pizzas in the space of five hours once.

“Tom here’s kind of embarrassed about looking so unaccomplished,” Vik said, jabbing his thumb at Tom.

“That would be embarrassing,” Wyatt said solemnly. “People might assume you’ve done nothing to earn your place here. Well, I’ll change that if Yuri wants me to, but you have to cover for me if Blackburn notices. You have to swear it!”

“I swear, I’ll cover for you,” Tom assured her.

She bit her lip, then yanked back her sleeve to expose the portable keyboard strapped around her right forearm. “What do you need me to put in, then?”

Vik raised an eyebrow at Tom. “Well?”

Tom wasn’t sure what accomplishment he should make up about himself. “Champion lawn bowler?” he tried.

Wyatt scowled at him. “Lawn bowling?”

“Oh yeah,” Vik agreed. “If there was a lawn bowling Olympics, Tom would’ve gotten a gold medal. He’s also a national spelling bee champion.”

Wyatt nodded crisply, obviously considering that a respectable accomplishment. “Many people can’t spell. It’s rather sad.”

Hoping to shock her, Tom added, “I’m also a founding contributor to the world’s largest ball of …”

“Twine?” Vik suggested.

“Why, no, Vikram,” Tom said. “Earwax.”

Wyatt lowered her keyboard an inch. “Are you making these up?”

“Of course he isn’t,” Vik said.

“I’ll put in the spelling bee stuff, but I am not sticking an earwax ball in your profile. Or lawn bowling. I don’t even know what that is.”