Monster Exchange Program Read online

  I couldn’t help but add a bit of swagger to my walk as I continued out of earshot. Humans really were an odd bunch. Entertaining, but odd nonetheless. Orientation wasn’t quite what I thought it would be. There was a tired, stressed-out assistant professor laying out the rules for all of the new arrivals. The poor man looked like he’d been working all through the summer break. He was reading directly from the e-book on his tablet. The rules were pretty straightforward. No partying in the public areas of the campus, no consumption of controlled or illicit substances on campus, although the university itself was only responsible for what was consumed in public.

  There were some chuckles from the newer arrivals who interpreted that as free license to consume whatever they wanted in their dorms. I knew better, though. They would still be punished if caught using any drugs stronger than pot—since that had been legal in the state for a while now—but the university wouldn’t be held liable in any way. This was the university covering its ass.

  As he started to hand out the various dorm and study assignments, the chosen major of each student was revealed based on the classes and whatnot. I knew there would be hints of a surprise when the rest of the students learned what I’d picked for my major. Sure, someone like me being given a scholarship did have sports connotations (and it didn’t hurt that the Bureau had pulled a lot of strings). Most of the leagues were already starting to put rules in place that allowed non-humans to participate in sports events, and some sports were even being developed and broadcast for non-humans only.

  When my major showed up as Electrical Engineering, there was tittering and open laughter. There were a lot of things that I generally didn’t let touch me, and times when I encouraged the hurtful stereotypes since that made people think they knew what I was capable of. There was nothing more fun than proving them wrong and watching them rethink their whole lives.

  But, there were other times when people needed to be taught a lesson in humility. Mocking me by trying to imitate how they thought I would look while fixing electronics with my tusks was too much, even for me. I shook my head, trying to ignore them, but as the laughter continued, I decided that something needed to be done. One of the students was holding his phone up and filming all the reactions—likely some kind of ‘influencer’ planning to post it on one or more of the various social media platforms.

  I extended my hand, inhaled, and closed my eyes. There was some of the old ways, the old magic swirling in my blood, all thanks to mom, of course. Geneticists had studied it, calling it a recessive gene, although they weren’t sure exactly what it was that allowed me to connect to electronics. My mother was better at it than me, but I had inherited a few of the skills.

  I reached out, feeling in touch with the electrical waves coming from the device, and then followed them into the phone itself. The connection was difficult to explain, but it felt like I was physically slipping through the interior of the machine and riding the pulses of energy with each command sent from the touchpad, which now coursed through me as well.

  I smiled, closed my fist, and opened my eyes as the phone exploded in a shower of sparks.

  The influencer’s eyes widened as he tried to understand what had just happened to his whole life, which was tied to the device. He turned around to face me, seeing my lips curled up in a smile made slightly terrifying by the tusks on either side. He shook his head as I flipped him the bird and then returned my attention to the AP, who had noticed the young student reacting to the fact that I was responsible for ruining his life.

  “You son of a bitch!” the kid shouted. Now, there was something that I wouldn’t take personally. I learned so much from my mother, but there was no disputing that she was indeed a stone-cold bitch.

  “If you wouldn’t mind paying attention… Skylar Blackwell?” the AP snapped, taking a step forward. “You really don’t want to start this semester on my bad side, do you?”

  Skylar. That kid’s parents never gave him a chance in life with a name like that. Although with a last name like Blackwell, I imagined that a hefty trust fund came with the terrible name.

  He sat, and the orientation continued. It didn’t take very long since the AP was determined to get through all the information as quickly as possible, making sure all the necessary details were texted to the students who needed to know them. It made the whole orientation session a bit redundant, I mused, but then, that was what universities were about these days, right?

  I was the first one out of the room, not wanting to be bothered by Skylar and his sudden lack of ability to ‘influence.’ I wanted to get to my room, unpack, and focus on the real job I was here to do.

  As I walked through the grounds, more students were arriving, enjoying the bright, sunny California day. They were bunched up in the usual collection of cliques that I’d come to expect from a place like this. Jocks, cheerleaders—I caught a glimpse of Jennifer and Crystal, still poring over the phone— the studious, valedictorian-type kids, the activists. There were even a couple of sororities and frats already starting to gather attention for the rush that would come later in the week.

  There was something else I noticed, that I thought was out of place. About a dozen students—a disparate group of jocks, stoners, and goths who usually wouldn’t associate with each other—were hanging in a furtive kind of way that made the hairs on the back of my thick neck stand up. I narrowed my eyes, slowing my pace as I intentionally shifted my backpack and duffel bag around to give me an excuse for not moving as fast, buying more time to watch. My first instinct was that they were only together for the common interest of scoring some illicit or controlled substances. That was what made the three groups hang out together, right?

  But no substances were passed. They spoke to each other in hushed whispers that I could hear but not make out the words, which were too mumbled to understand. They appeared to be trying to spread a message without anyone noticing that they were actually interacting as a group.

  Their reaction to seeing me wasn’t quite what I expected. They quickly scattered. I came closer, trying to follow some of them, but they disappeared into other groups and rushed into various buildings. By the time I reached the place where they’d gathered, they’d all vanished.

  Clearly, I needed to work on my eavesdropping skills, I thought, mentally chastising myself until I caught view of something else. Something different but equally interesting. Posters—of the girl who had gone missing. The same girl from my vision. If campus security was so intent on keeping the disappearances a secret, I had to assume that the only reason these posters were still up was that they hadn’t been seen, yet. Had this been what the kids were discussing?

  I stepped closer, noting that some people watched me oddly, but I didn’t care. I ripped off one of the posters from a post it was stapled to, folded it up, and put it in my pocket for closer study later. For now, I needed to get to my room and adjust, get my bearings.

  3

  It was a short walk to the student dormitories. People were eager to get out of my way, and it wasn’t only because I was larger than the university’s team linebackers. The news that a half-troll had enrolled was already spreading across campus. I didn’t like the way people stared at me like I was some kind of novelty. I preferred it when they ignored or hated me, the way most humans felt when they looked at me. This way, I felt like a fucking caged animal that they expected to pull off tricks to amuse them, all afraid that I’d break through the bars and hurt them, wild animal that they thought I was.

  Fuck them.

  I couldn’t shake the feeling as I reached the door of the housing complex, shrugging my annoyance off like an ugly coat and ignoring the rest of them. I was here to do a job, whether they were aware of it or not, and I didn’t give a shit how they saw me.

  Following the directions provided, I ended up on the second floor and found the room marked 213. I used my phone to unlock the door. Campuses like these were equipped for pretty much anything. While the doors could be unlocked using
a key card that was given out at the central building, they also made it so we could get the app to open the door without needing a card or a key. Streamlining the process was something that I had always been in favor of.

  The room wasn’t that large. There was enough space for a pair of single beds with a small desk between them for studying. There was another desk between the door and the bed on the right, with the space between the bed on the left and the bathroom taken up by a closet. This was a student living in a private university. I’d never thought I would see the like.

  Since it appeared that my roommate hadn’t shown up yet, I decided that I would choose the bedding situation. I picked the one closest to the entrance, which meant my desk was the one next to the door, just the way I liked it. I took a quick moment to inspect my surroundings and make sure that everything with the bathroom and the room was in place the way it was supposed to be after dropping all of my luggage on my bed. It wasn’t a lot, but there was a need to mark my territory.

  Not literally, of course, but still.

  I connected my laptop and phone to the room’s integrated Wi-Fi before I unpacked. I was going to leave most of my stuff in the bag, but there was some equipment, including what I called my tinkering bag—full of pieces and half-built devices that I toyed with and got to work on in my spare time—that I needed closer to hand. I also moved Mr. Turtle from his hidden pocket in my suitcase to a five-inch high and six-inch wide nook in the wall behind the mattress. My best guess was that the last resident had too much to drink one night and fell into the wall, then hid his mistake with the bed frame. A lucky break for Mr. Turtle.

  The rest, I quickly shoved back into my bag, except for a change of clothes. I had thought that I would need to give off a much better first impression by dressing up somewhat. Now, I needed to put on some clothes that would let me mix in better with the rest of the folks around here.

  I looked around the room one more time and made sure that the door was closed and locked before I pulled off my shirt, rolled my shoulders and ran my fingers across the selection of scars on my skin. A scattering of tattoos across my chest, shoulders, back, and arms were visible, too. Some were more modern than others. There were those in my tribe who liked the old ways a little too much, making it difficult to advance but damned if I didn’t find a way to compromise. The Old Tree covered my back, with the branches spreading the Valeesa snakes over my arms. They were markings for warriors of the tribes. The modern tattoos—a panther on my right bicep, some human tribal patterns on the left arm, and the sigils of a couple of the local teams that I’d ended up becoming a fan of over the years—contrasted the old-style art. The modern ones weren’t very popular with the elders, but with a shamaness for a mother, some things received a blind eye turned.

  I was a bit of rebel. They said it was the human nature in me. Then again, trolls weren’t exactly the most establishment-friendly beings, anyway.

  I dropped my pants, too, and my briefs were on the way down when I heard the door to the room unlock. I shook my head, thinking about how the timing could not have been worse. But I wasn’t overly ashamed of my body. Let my new roommate step in and have his eyes pop out of his head with my lack of modesty.

  Except, I realized, as I stepped out of the last of my clothes, it wasn’t a him after all. It was a her. A particularly small her, just a hair over five feet tall. She sported black hair that was barely down to her shoulders, with bangs and glasses, and dressed with a little more than had to be comfortable in the warm summer weather.

  Her eyes bugged out of her head when she saw me naked in the room, though.

  “I think you’re in the wrong room, here, lady,” I grumbled, narrowing my eyes and adjusting my watch for a second, not hurrying to get my clothes on again.

  She didn’t look like she would be talking for a few seconds. Her eyes were stuck on my naked body, quickly running up and down as her mouth dropped open. Her eyes looked even bigger through those glasses of hers.

  “Hey,” I said, waving my hand and snapping my fingers to catch her attention again. “You still with me? What, see something you like?”

  A few more seconds were needed to bring her out of her trance.

  “Yes,” she said. I raised an eyebrow, and she panicked again. “I mean… No? I mean, what? No, no! Hi, I’m Kelly. Kelly Graham.” She stepped in to offer her hand for me to shake, and her eyes drifted down over my body again, particularly stopping at the bits that were usually covered. “Do you mind covering that thing? It’s a little difficult to concentrate while it’s…hanging around like that.”

  “Oh… Sure,” I said with a smile, pretending not to realize what was making her uncomfortable about it. “Sorry about that. As I said, I think you’re in the wrong room. I don’t think these dorms are co-ed, you know.”

  She waited to answer until I wrapped a towel around my midsection and turned to face her again, stubbornly refusing to fully dress just because she wanted me to.

  “No, I think you’re in the wrong room,” she replied, still refusing to look directly at me as she pulled her phone out of her pocket and showed me the number that was meant to be hers.

  Or, ours, in this case. I moved over to my bed, where I’d left my device, and showed her the same number, 213.

  “Shi…shoot,” she snapped, shaking her head as she pulled her backpack off and dumped it on her bed. “Looks like they bungled something at the admissions office, maybe because you’re a… I mean… wait, are you here on the MXP program?”

  “Yeah,” I said, narrowing my eyes.

  “That’s so cool!” she said, looking at my eyes for the first time instead of my chest. “What did you pick for your major?”

  “Electrical engineering,” I answered. “So I’m doing pre-engineering now.” That basically meant a series of classes that would involve Fundamentals of Physics, Calculus, a basic Linear Circuits class, and a few others. It was all a cover anyway, so I kept it simply as ‘pre-engineering’ for now.

  “Ooh, wow!” she said, and when I scowled at her, she quickly spoke up again. “I’m not saying that because I’m surprised that a troll would be in electrical engineering. The wow is because that’s mine, too. This year, anyway. I changed my major after I realized that the Psychology department here was one of the worst programs.”

  “Oh,” I said, taking a moment to pick my shirt up off the bed and pull it on. Even though she had managed to pull herself back together somewhat, her eyes still drifted toward my chest, arms, and shoulders uncomfortably often.

  “Yeah, and what’s funny is that I was one of the students campaigning for them to start an MXP program here,” she said, turning back to her bed and starting to unpack. “They opened one up in a few of the New York universities, and even one in Washington State, so I thought it would be good to have one here at USC too. A lot of students agreed with me, too. Almost five hundred of us showed up at the rally.”

  “Huh,” I grunted, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t you think it’s a little weird that the admissions office would have had a mix-up like this regarding me and someone that campaigned to have me here? Sounds like someone’s messing with you. Or me.”

  “No, they wouldn’t do that,” she chuckled, but the way her eyebrows dropped said that she didn’t actually believe that. “I’m Kelly, by the—”

  “You introduced yourself before,” I replied, taking her extended hand and shaking it firmly. “I’m Nate. Do you want to go and see if we can’t get the room thing sorted out now? Before either of us get too far with our unpacking?”

  “Yes, please,” she chirped. “Though I think it would be best if you put some pants on.”

  I nodded, dropped the towel, and turned around with a small grin. She gasped and quickly faced her bed while I pulled on some underwear and pants, as well as my boots.

  “I’m sorry about this,” the building supervisor, a woman who looked like she was only a couple of years out of college herself, said. She had agreed to meet with us even thoug
h this had to be one of the busiest days of the year for her, with all the students arriving for the beginning of classes. “Looks like there was some kind of mix-up at the Admissions office, putting the two of you in a room together. I’ll sort it out although it might be a couple of days before we can move you to separate rooms. Do either of you want to move to a temporary residence until then?”

  “I don’t mind,” I said with a shrug. I was used to bouncing around from one room to another as my job needed me. Or I would be, once I’d been at the job a little longer.

  “Oh, come on, that won’t be necessary,” Kelly said quickly, watching me out of the corner of her eye. “I mean, we’re in there now, anyway, and I don’t mind having him for a roommate for a couple of days.”

  The administrator nodded, and then turned to me, waiting for me to speak up. I looked at both of them before shrugging.

  “As long as I have a place to sleep and put my stuff, I don’t really care where it is or who I share it with,” I said. I might regret that decision eventually, but at this point, the day was getting away from me and I wanted to do some work before my schedule clogged up with classes.

  Besides, it was almost lunchtime and people didn’t maintain the kind of mass I had by skipping meals.

  “Excellent, then!” the administrator said with a chuckle. “Once again, we’re sorry about this mix-up. Please let us know if there’s any trouble with this arrangement.”

  I did note that she focused most of that last bit toward Kelly. Again, it was pretty much to be expected. I was actually a little surprised that the admin didn’t insist on one of us leaving the room. They had some progressive people here in California.

  “Well, with that settled, I think I’m going to get some lunch,” I said, idly running my tongue across my left tusk as I turned to leave.

  “I’ll see you around, Nate,” Kelly called after me. I politely smiled back, not answering.