Free Insignia by S. J. Kincaid

out, or drag him to morning meal formation.”
    The inert, orange-haired boy’s eyes snapped open. Beamer sat up so quickly, Tom shot back a step, startled.
    “I object to this discussion,” Beamer informed Tom, his pale face cloudy, making him look for all the world like someone sleep talking. “Vik is casting aspersions on my character. Catabolic processes oxidize carbon-containing nutrients.”
    “What?” Tom said, confused.
    But Beamer slumped back down to the floor and said nothing more. It took Tom a long moment to realize he was unconscious again.
    “Moron,” Vik said fondly, his eyes dancing. “No processing, see? All that info in his brain, none of it in context yet.”
    “Guess not,” Tom murmured. He could kind of sympathize with Beamer there. He felt rather information overloaded himself at the moment.
    “Now hurry up with that uniform before the Android swings by to get us for morning meal formation.”
    “An actual android?” Tom asked. He couldn’t tell what was real and what was science fiction anymore.
    “Nah. That’s what we call Beamer’s roommate, Yuri. He goes jogging every morning even though we have Calisthenics three times a week, and he’s always in a fantastic mood. He’ll help you with homework or move heavy things for you, and he’s always trying to make friends with this weird girl Wyatt Enslow, because he feels sorry for her. Nicest guy you’ll ever meet. Beamer and I have decided he must be an android. An android slash spy.”
    “Spy?” Tom yanked the dark tunic, with an Alexander Division sword on the arm, the Intrasolar Forces eagle insignia on the collar, and a single triangular point beneath it. He wriggled on the biker-guy type gloves, and then spotted the last item: a flat keypad.
    His neural processor told him to clamp the metal prongs on the bottom of the keyboard onto the slots of the glove on his nondominant hand.
    “Shove your sleeve over it,” Vik instructed him. “You won’t need the keyboard until later.”
    Tom pressed the keyboard against his forearm, and found it was made of a flexible polymer that bent with his arm. He hooked the ends into the slots on the glove of his left hand, then pulled down his sleeve to keep it in place.
    Vik went on, “So anyway, Beamer’s roommate, Yuri, is Russian, right? He also comes from a connected family. His dad knows this guy who practically founded the Intrasolar Forces. He got Yuri into the Spire, whether the US military wanted him or not. Since Yuri was born and raised in Russia, a lot of people think he’s a spy. The military must think he is, too, since Yuri became a plebe three years ago and he’s still never been promoted. Most plebes are promoted after a year or so. All the others who began the program when he did have advanced to Upper Company or gone off to work for another government agency by now.”
    Tom tugged on the combat boots, did up the laces, and shoved the ends of his camouflage fatigues in them the way he saw Vik wearing his. “Do you think he’s a spy?”
    “Nah. I told you, man. He’s an android.”
    The doors slid open. In bounded a giant, wavy-haired kid standing at six foot eight, his body a coiled mass of muscle, a good-natured grin on his swarthy, handsome face.
    NAME : Yuri Sysevich
    RANK : USIF, Grade III Plebe, Alexander Division
    ORIGIN : St. Petersburg, Russia
    ACHIEVEMENTS : Chris Canning Award for Academic Excellence, Elsevier Woods Award for Young Humanitarian
    IP : 2053:db7:lj71::236:ll3:6e8
    SECURITY STATUS : Confidential LANDLOCK-1
    Tom stared. He really did have a lower security designation than the rest of them.
    “Why, hullo, fellows. Are you ready to head to breakfast soon?” Yuri’s gaze lit upon Tom. “Ah. And you. You are the new plebe. Timothy Rodale.”
    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