Page 4 of Jinxed
She took her design to a board of reality television investors, who threw money at her and turned her – and her baku – into a viral sensation overnight. Before long, MONCHA was up and running in a small co-working space in Toronto’s Discovery District, alongside crowd-sourced taxi services and the latest health trackingsoftware. It opened its first factory in North Toronto and just kept expanding, taking over buildings and multiplying like mould in a petri dish as bakus becamethemust-have device around the world. Monica bought her old condominium building to help provide housing for her employees, then started her own school for her employees’ kids, acquired a local hospital to provide healthcare... andquickly Monchaville was born.
A loud crash from beside me snaps me from my thoughts. Zora gasps and when I look up, my jaw drops too. On the counter two down from ours is a stunning high level baku – an eagle – its wings spread so wide they’ve knocked over a display case of customizable butterfly wings. The companioneering work on display is on a level beyond anything I’ve seen. The feathersare made up of individual filaments of steel-sprayed-gold, giving it a rich, sparkling texture. It tosses its head – so lifelike – and lets out a screech that almost pierces my eardrums. It’s magnificent. It’s absolutely top-of-the-line. Must be at least level 4, if not level 5.
Who couldaffordsomething like that?
I get my answer. The eagle folds its wings down and, staring wide-eyed at hisnew baku, is a guy in a Profectus-branded jersey.
‘Lace?’ Zora whispers in my ear. ‘I think you’re drooling.’
‘What?’ I drop my head and wipe my mouth, just in case she wasn’t joking. ‘That baku is amazing.’
‘That’s not the only thing that’s amazing.Damn, he is fine,’ Zora says in a low voice, wiggling her eyebrows at the guy, making me snort.
She’s not wrong. I dare one more glance. Theguy is older than us and tall – six feet at least – with a smooth high brow and close-shaved black hair that’s just starting to lift into small curls. His teeth are bright white against his dark skin as his lips split into a giant grin.
I’d be grinning like that too, if that beautiful bird was destined to be my baku.
‘Tobias, my man!’ comes a shout from behind me. Another guy – also in a Profectusjersey, but this one so new I see the price tag sticking out at the back – barges past me, knocking me into Zora, and then both of us into the counter.
‘Watch it!’ I snap. ‘There’s a line, you know.’
The guy doesn’t turn around but his baku does. An ugly pig snuffles at our feet, pawing at the ground. It has two huge tusks and it sways its head menacingly – not a pig, then, but a boar. I leapback, letting out an involuntary yelp.
‘Rein it in, Carter,’ says Zora, who recovers faster than me.
My neck snaps around so fast, I almost get whiplash.Carter?
I don’t know why I’m so surprised. Despite the fact that I beat him in almost every class – much to his annoyance – his acceptance into Profectus was a signed, sealed and delivered thing.
He saunters over, smirking at me.
‘Zora?Is that you – and Lacey?’
I cringe as he says my name. I wish with all my heart now that I had taken the subway out to some distant Moncha Store where I wouldn’t run into people I know. Especially not this particular person.
‘Admiring my new baku, are you? When I got my Profectus acceptance last night, I got an upgradestraightaway.’
‘You mean your dad bought you an upgrade,’ Zora snaps.That’swhy the boar baku is so surprising. I’m sure the last time I saw him at school, he had a dog baku.
Carter just shrugs. ‘Meet Hunter – he’s a level 4, don’t you know.’
I grimace, despite myself. Trust him to get a level 4 baku without having to earn it. I wonder if he even knows how to operate it properly. His dad probably got one of the companioneers at Moncha to customize it just forhim. My body aches with jealousy.
‘Choosing your baku, are you?’ He leans his elbow on the counter, tilting his head to one side. ‘What are you going for?’
‘Oh, uh...’ I try to calculate the time it would take for me to bolt to the door. Internet or no internet, anything is better than the humiliation I’m about to face if...
‘Here’s your beetle, miss.’
The vet’s timing couldn’t be worse.He sets the tiny box down on the counter, the beetle baku trapped in a white plastic mould, clearly visible through the transparent opening in the front. Carter’s eyes bulge out of his head. I don’t know whether he’s going to explode from confusion or glee – or both, as the realization dawns. Then he begins to laugh. He laughs and laughs, as my face burns with embarrassment.
I turn away fromCarter but not before I notice that everyone in the store is looking at me, including the hot guy Tobias with the eagle baku.
‘You didn’t get in, did you? Oh, Lace – all those years of being a total nerd, wasted!’ Carter says, before laughing even more.
‘Come on, Zora,’ I mumble, snatching the beetle from off the counter, and this time she doesn’t try to stop me.
‘Hey, don’t you want me toshow you how to leash it?’ the vet calls after us.
