D’Cardi’s was an upscale women’s clothing store with an Italian flair. The store featured signs in Italian and English, murals of the countryside and ancient churches and villas along the walls, and of course, the strands of opera at a gentle volume; mingled together with the fashionable leather coats, bags, belts, and earth-toned jewelry, the store exuded a sophisticated class that made it perfectly at home as a mall highlight. Jennifer Tabarone worked there, one of the junior members of the DMIC. Tuesday nights were slow nights and she was idly scanning the CD rack for something interesting. She had just come across a tenor described as the Pavarotti of Gregorian chant when Tristiana walked into the store.
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Brandon had forgotten to email Jimmy last night, so he’d have to do what he had never done before — get to school early — and talk to him. He figured if he knew how Veero worked then at least something would make sense. He sucked in a sudden breath. He still needed to make up a codename, too.
Everyone knew that the geeks got to school before dawn and that they controlled the library. They also asked you fiendishly difficult questions if you started harassing them, so that even very dense people ran away screaming that their brains were melting. Their star running back had spent a week on the bench muttering about cosines once because of that. If they gave him trouble, he’d say, “I’m looking for Jimmy,” in his best tough-guy movie accent. Geeks respected fake accents, didn’t they?
