Chapter 10
The next morning, Andes was up and ready for her first day at Arkadia. She was looking forward to spending time with Raven. After breakfast, Clarke took her over to the control room.
“There’s my girl!” Raven called out. Clarke told Andes she would see her later and left them both to their own devices. Raven started by introducing Andes to computers. She was fascinated, and by the end of the hour she was mastering all the games that Raven had showed her. She was able to look inside one of the broken ones, learning all the inner workings of disks, circuit boards, switches, and everything else that made a computer work. While she was poking around with a mother board, she heard Raven curse.
“What’s up?” she asked as she went over to look at what Raven was doing. “What’s all that.”
“This, goddess, is called code. This is the language of computers. I basically write code, which in turn tells the computer what to do. Right now, I’ve written a code for something, but it’s not working, and it pisses me off when I can’t get my code to work. So, I’m trying to scroll through all this code to find the problem. I must have written something wrong.”
Andes watched as Raven scrolled through lines and lines of text. “Wait. Go back.”
Raven looked at her, “what? Did you see something?”
“Yeah, something looked different. Keep going back, there, that line is different.”
Raven squinted at the screen, “well I’ll be damned, holy shit, I had an extra character in there.” She looked dumbfounded at Andes. “How did you see that?”
Andes shrugged, “I don’t know, I just noticed that it looked different, it was longer than the other lines.”
“But I was scrolling really fast, like, really fast, how did you even notice it?”
“I don’t know what to tell you. I just saw it.”
“Dude, I seriously love you. And if I were on your team, we’d be doin’ it right now. On the floor, in front of this computer. But I don’t love you like that. And that’s a fucking shame.”
Andes had a thoughtful look on her face, “that floor is too hard, I’d put you up on that desk and do you real good.”
“I dig that, I dig your passion, high five.” She put her hand up for Andes, but she wasn’t sure what she was looking for. “High five, take your hand and slap mine, high five, “ Andes raised her casted hand, “whoa whoa, your other hand, the one without the hard plastic on it, please. “ Andes slapped Raven’s hand, hard, not knowing her own strength.
“Ouch, ok, I think you broke my hand. You can take that down a notch, a little softer.” Andes tried again and Raven nodded, “there you go, goddess.”
“Teach me how to write code.”
“Seriously?” Andes nodded. “Now you’re really turning me on.” And over the next few hours, Raven taught some basic computer languages to Andes, who was of course a quick study. She loved it, being able to tell a computer what to do. She ended up spending most of the day with Raven, writing code and laughing, lots of laughing.
Raven was impressed with Andes capacity for learning. “Tomorrow, I want you to take a test.”
“What kind of test?”
“It’s called an IQ test, Intelligence Quotient. It basically measures intelligence, how smart you are, that kinda stuff.”
“Ok, whatever, sounds fun.”
“And here, try this.” Raven came over and put ear plugs in Andes ears, tapped a few keys on the keyboard, and for the first time in her life, Andes heard recorded music.
She looked up at Raven, grinning from ear to ear. “What is this?”
“Music my friend, enjoy.”
Andes started bobbing her head to the beat, “wow, this is great!”
“Well, wait until Saturday night.”
“Why, what happens then?”
“Every Saturday night we turn the mess hall in to a dance club, and we all go a little bat shit crazy, let loose. Playing music, dancing, singing, drinking, partying. It’s a blast.”
“Well, I can’t wait.”
“I think we can call it a day. You did good. I’m impressed with that brain of yours. You coming back tomorrow?”
“Hell yeah, high five.”
Raven smiled as she slapped Andes hand.
Andes made her way back to the room, laptop in hand, headphones on, bopping her head to the music. Clarke was there sitting at her desk. “Hey you, how did it go with Raven today.”
Andes talked loudly, because of the headphones, “it went great.” Clarke got up and removed her headphones, “was I loud?“ Andes asked sheepishly.
“Just a little, whadya got there?”
“Raven gave me this laptop to play around with, and, she showed me music, it’s pretty cool. Hey, are we going to the mess hall tomorrow night? Raven said it’s a big party, and everyone goes.” Clarke just looked at her, how excited she was, it was really cute. “Clarke, you’re staring, you know I love it when you stare at me. It gets me all tingly inside.” She said with a leering smile.
“Oh calm down, you just looked cute, all excited about your computer and tomorrow night.”
“Cute? I think I prefer sexy.”
“Well, that goes without saying.”
“Now we’re talking, you just let me know, you know, if you need anything. And by anything, I mean sex.”
“Oh my god, really? I can see Raven’s been a good influence on you.”
“We had a blast. She is way funny.”
“Way funny?”
“Yes, lots of sexual innuendo talk.”
“What, did you read a dictionary today? Sexual innuendo?”
“That’s what she said. Not the dictionary part, the sexual innuendo part.”
“I can’t even follow this conversation. Are you ready to go to dinner?”
“Yes, I’m ready. Are we going Saturday night?”
“You can go if you want.”
“Why, don’t you go?”
“Yes, I go, and I will take you. But it’s not a date, “ she said pointing at Andes.
Andes grabbed her finger and went to bite it, playfully. Clarke watched her mouth and zoned out for a moment, thinking back to that mouth and what it could do. She snapped out of it, looking up at Andes, who was looking at her with her eyebrows raised, sensing where Clarke just went. “If you say so.”
They made their way to the dining hall, joining Raven, Bell, Echo, Wick, and Harper at a table. Dinner was not that exiting, but there were cookies afterwards. Somebody brought them back from Polis. Everyone had one, and there was one left. Andes and Raven both reached for the last cookie at the table.
“That’s the last cookie, dude. I”ll arm wrestle you for it.” Raven said.
“Arm wrestle?”
“Yeah, here, we put our elbows on the table, we grip each other’s hand like this, and then when I say go, we each try and put the other’s hand down on the table. I’ll even let you use your good hand.“
“Seriously, you’re gonna arm wrestle her? Have you seen this muscle,” Clarke said as she grabbed Andes flexed bicep. Andes felt herself get a little wet, god she was pathetic.
“Yeah, well, it’s all about technique, leverage. Let’s go goddess,”
They both got into position, Andes asked, “you ready?”
“Oh, that porn voice make work on blondie over there, but not me,” as she gazed briefly into Andes eyes, trying to distract her, catch her off guard, “Ready, go!” Andes whipped Raven’s hand onto the table so fast she fell off her chair. Everyone leaned over to look at Raven on the floor. “Raven you ok?” “ Wow, Rav, you hurt?” “you ok dude?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” she said as she got up. She pointed to Andes, “I didn’t say go.”
“You did say go.”
“I don’t think I did.”
“Oh you did, you said go. I heard it.”
“I don’t know, I don’t think I did, maybe I said oh or something. “
“No, it was go.”
Clarke and Bellamy chimed in, “yeah, you said go, “
“Ok, ok, I obviously wasn’t ready. “ They got in position again, Raven looking at Andes, “better be careful, I have ways,” Andes flashed back to Clarke and the tickling episode, and subtly wrapped her other arm around her waist, looking at Clarke. Clarke noticed and immediately started laughing, making Andes smile. Raven saw the distraction, “go!” Putting her full force into it, Andes wasn’t even looking at her, still smiling at Clarke, winking at her now, Raven pushed and pushed and couldn’t budge Andes hand. She finally gave up. “Ok, geez, you can have the cookie. I’m full anyway.”
Andes broke the cookie in half and shared it with Raven, who said, “Dude, you’re strong as an ox.”
“Oh I don’t know, you made me work back there. “
“I did, didn’t I? I thought I did.”
“Absolutely, I think I broke a sweat, wait,” she wiped at her brow, “is that wet? I think it’s wet.”
“Oh, yeah, it’s wet, you broke a sweat.”
“Yeah I did, up high,” Andes said, raising her hand above her head, Raven slapping her hand into Andes.
Clarke looked back and forth, between Raven and Andes, ‘”You two are fucking weirdos.”
Andes looked shocked, looked at Raven, “fucking weirdos? That sounds harsh, doesn’t it?”
“Sounds a bit harsh, yeah,”
“She didn’t have to insert ‘fucking’ in there, “
“No, that definitely made it harsher,”
“Clarke taught me all about that word, and I do believe in this context, it was not meant as a compliment.”
“Agreed.”
“Oh my god, I knew if you two got together it would be a fucking nightmare.” Clarke said, rolling her eyes, secretly loving it though, loved seeing her two of her favorite people getting along so well.
A sharp intake of breath from Raven, “there’s that word again,” looking at Andes.
“She really has a fucking potty mouth.”
Raven tried to keep a straight face, but burst out laughing. All of them did. ‘I love her Clarke , I love her.” she said as she turned towards Andes, “But not like that.“
“Maybe someday, when I write a code to change the world.”
“Yeah then I’ll love you like that. You know, that cookie wasn’t even that good.”
“I know,” Andes looked at Clarke, “A little cake from Sara would be nice right now.”
“Oh, who’s Sara?” Raven asked, with big eyes.
Clarke chimed in, “that would be one of Andes fuck buddies.”
“Fuck buddies?” Andes hadn’t heard that one before, but she liked it.
“One of her fuck buddies? Geez, how many do you have, goddess?”
“A few.” They all just stared at her. “What can I say, I like sex.”
“Don’t we all,” Raven answered.
All Clarke could do is shake her head, laughing. This was one day spent together, these two. God help her in 6 weeks.
They made it back to their room later. Clarke went into the bathroom and Andes stripped off her clothes and went under the covers. When Clarke came back out, Andes said, “you’re different here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, you’re different. Everyone looks to you, you can tell. You’re confident, in control, it’s kind of a turn on.”
Clarke smiled, and her stomach churned a little. “Well, thank you.”
“So, I guess you’re the heda around here?”
“Yeah, to an extent that I have final say in things. We do have our own council, we all have input. But any decision will come down to me.”
“So, it’s like I’m sleeping with the boss.”
“More like you slept with the boss.” Clarke corrected her. Andes thought that one would slide through unnoticed.
“Right. Good to know. Good night Clarke.”
“Good night Andes.”