Tom took his revenge on Vik later that night when they battled in Samurai Eternity, and Tom ripped Vik’s simulated head off with his bare hands.

“Augh,” Vik cried, tearing off his wired gloves, as the statue boomed, “IT IS 2115 AND THE GORMLESS CRETIN SAYS: DERP!”

“Oh, look at your head, dripping with blood and subcutaneous tissue,” Tom told him, holding the head between his wired gloves. “What is it saying? What is it?” He leaned in closer. “It says, ‘Tom will beat you to death with your own head if that statue doesn’t stop talking.’”

Vik scratched his real head. “Is that what it said? I have this feeling my head is very articulate, but whenever you translate something, all I hear is ‘derp, derp, derp, derp, derp.’ That’s something you’d say, Tom.”

“You asked for this,” Tom said grimly, then grasped Vik’s simulated head by the hair and wielded it like a mallet, beating Vik over the virtual shoulders with it as Vik cackled away. Then Vik reared up, hands aloft, and surrendered. He deleted the audio feature from the template later that night. The gormless cretin statue became a mercifully silent one.

Tom never admitted something to him, though: he was extremely pleased with the new bunk template. All the emptiness he’d felt without Vik in there had been chased away by the decorations, the visible warning that his best friend would be tormenting him for years to come, whether they were roommates or not.

CHAPTER SIX

FRIDAY MORNING, TOM woke up to a ping: Consciousness initiated. The time is 0520. He hadn’t even sat up before another ping demanded that he select his attire for his visit to the Coalition companies, and a third ping requested he select a departure time between 0600 and 0700. Tom found Vik’s name already in a slot and selected that one.

Tom turned his attention to the clothing prompt, and scrolled through question after question. He chose the first option for color of tie, the first style of suit, the first style of loafer, and kept going through the text that way until it stopped annoying him. After his shower, he followed the directions in his neural processor to the twelfth-floor depository. There, he found himself in a large room filled with rounded, plastic drawers. One of the drawers in the wall slid open, revealing a suit and shirt hanging on a rack. Tom snatched them, shrugged off his uniform, and pulled them on.

Next, a smaller drawer popped open, spitting out shoes, socks, and a tie. Tom donned them, too, hesitating only when the tie was in hand; he couldn’t help remembering Dalton Prestwick showing him how to tie one. He gritted his teeth and put it on anyway. Then he hurled his uniform down a waiting laundry chute and set off downstairs.

Vik met him within minutes, the mess hall still dim with early morning. They were both startled when Yuri arrived in a suit of his own.

“What are you doing, man?” Vik exclaimed. “Get your beauty sleep, Yuri. We’re the ones stuck doing some boring meetings.”

“I have been invited to accompany you.”

“Really? That’s awesome!” Tom exclaimed. Maybe it was a good sign if Yuri was allowed to attend an event just for Middles.

But there was something slightly sad in Yuri’s blue eyes, even though he smiled. “Yes. It is.”

WHEN WYATT JOINED them, they headed to the Mezzanine. It wasn’t listed as an official floor in the Spire, but the instructions in their neural processors told them to press and hold floors 1, 4, and 9 to get down there. Yuri had received a special exemption to unlock the Mezzanine in his processor, so he spent the whole ride pressing them for information about what else he wasn’t seeing. Tom and Vik had fun making things up.

“You are not being honest,” Yuri said.

“We totally are,” Tom replied.

“I do not believe there is a coed naked romping court. You are inventing this.”

“Frankly, I’m offended by your accusation,” Vik said indignantly. “Because of this, we’re not bringing you to the CNRC next time we go, are we, Tom?”

Tom shook his head. “No way. If you don’t believe us, you don’t romp in our court. You can romp in someone else’s court.”

Yuri scowled at them.

“Don’t worry, they’re making it all up,” Wyatt assured Yuri, as though anyone doubted it.

They emerged into a marble-floored corridor with a bubbling fountain in the center and crisp signs indicating various sectors of the Mezzanine. One was an administrative wing, another led straight to the hybrid fission-fusion nuclear reactor, another led to something called the Vault that was so restricted, looking in that direction plastered warnings in their vision centers: Intruders shot on sight, which made them all walk a bit faster past it. The fourth sector led to the Pentagon, and the fifth to a room empty but for two rows of fake trees and at the far wall a massive set of glass double doors that gazed into pure darkness. Tom’s neural processor told him this was the entrance to the Interstice and that he should walk inside.

“What is an ‘Interstice’?” Vik said.

“Obviously some mode of transportation,” Wyatt said.

“That’s helpful, Evil Wench.”

They ventured through the fake trees, and something triggered. Green lines slashed from the plastic trunks, honing in on their eyes. One by one, their retinas were scanned, and after the green lights bit into Tom’s eyes, he saw words before his vision center: Identity verified. Trainee Raines, Thomas. Proceed to the doors.

They’d all received the same notice, so they found themselves standing there, shoulder to shoulder before the glass doors that led to the black chamber beyond.

And then a mechanized voice boomed in the air: “Decompression sequence initiated.”

Vik whirled around, genuinely alarmed. “Decompression in here?”

“Out there,” Wyatt said, poking her finger to indicate the room beyond the glass before them. “It can’t be in here because our lungs would’ve already ruptured.”

“I would have noticed that,” Tom said.

Yuri nodded. “And then our blood would boil.”

“I’d notice that, too,” Tom said.

He spotted something large and metallic rising into view in the chamber beyond the doors. It clanged to the ground loudly enough to make them all jump. It looked like a miniature metallic train car, sitting there in the darkness, the passenger cabin the only source of light in the decompressed room.

No wonder everyone’s departures had been spread out. The metal train car had a scattering of seats, but it obviously wasn’t meant for a heavy passenger load. Information soared through Tom’s brain: The Interstice is a series of magnetized vacuum tubes designed for traversion by magnetized vactrains propelled by magnetic fields. Given the absence of friction and minimal curvatures in the tubes, maximum speeds can reach 5,000 miles per hour. The vactrain is shielded to protect equipment inside from magnetic forces.

They all jumped when a mechanized voice boomed from overhead: “Recompression sequence initiated.” A chugging sound pervaded the air. The glass doors slid open to admit them into the room with the train car.

They all headed over and took seats inside the tiny metallic car. The doors slid shut behind them.

“Do we . . . press something?” Wyatt asked tentatively.

And then the mechanized voice boomed from overhead: “Decompression sequence initiated. Prepare for departure to Wyndham Harks Headquarters, New York City.”