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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“So why do you want to come to my house?” Brandon asked Wenchy.
She flipped her honey-brown hair and said, “Why else? To meet your mom.” She wore a long white dress that grew transparent around her ankles, where it was met by stockings of a similar hue and matching pumps. Her hair was done up in a style Brandon didn’t recognize, but it used a circlet of hair across the back of her head, leaving the rest to dance just above her shoulders.
It made perfect sense. His mom hadn’t met anyone from the DMIC. Why didn’t they all come together, though? He felt nervous. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll come the first week, then O-Man, then HIM, then Velvet Katherine, and then Veero. Oh yeah. Then Jackie will show up.”
“So how did it go?” asked Brian.
Brandon and his best friend, Brian, rode their bikes to school. They pedalled hard because the sky was grey-to-black and the wind was beginning to pick up.
“How did what go?” asked Brandon with a smile.
“C’mon, man. Don’t tell me you’re not even allowed to talk that much!”
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?
