C.A.R.P. Ch. 03

"What do you mean?"

"The alpha program isn't all dudes. It's 20 straight guys, 20 straight women, 5 gay or bi dudes and 5 gay or bi women, or it was when we started anyway."

Costello frowned intensely, as if my information was in direct contradiction with what she'd expected to hear. "Are all the alphas white?"

"Not even close," I told her. "I mean, it's, what, slightly more than half, I think? But we have black kids, Spanish kids, Asian kids, Indian kids... and we're not all American, although mostly we are. I think there's about ten alphas who aren't from the US, although that number's down a little since we had three alphas quit between semesters."

"Did it cause a ruckus?"

"Not really," I said to her. "They all just went back to their hometowns, and their betas were reassigned."

I spent a couple of minutes telling her about Paige, and how she'd essentially auditioned to find an existing alpha/beta couple to get paired with, something that seemed to make Costello almost apoplectic in shock, as the waiter delivered our food, a club sandwich for me and chicken penne for her.

"You could've had two girls to fuck on the reg, and you said no?" Costello shook her head. "I don't believe you, Turner. I don't believe you sent her away. What aren't you telling me?"

"If Dr. Igarashi's to believed, I'm going to have two girls to fuck anyway starting next year," I said. "They like springing surprises on us over at CARP, but I'm pretty certain they're looking to introduce a new member to my room some point soon."

"Can't imagine Julia will like that much."

"Honestly, she'll probably be fucking ecstatic," I admitted. "Julia and Paige didn't get along enough to make it work because they're both a bit controlling, and they would've been fighting for my time, because neither one of them thought of the other as above or below themselves in terms of status. Whatever they're planning on doing, they're already taking that into consideration."

"So you're gonna have two bitches looking after you while you're here? Rough life."

I clicked my tongue, wondering how much I wanted to tell Agent Costello, but in the end, I decided, fuck it, I needed to talk to somebody on the outside about all of this, and since Costello had assured me I could legally do it with her, I was going to be an open book.

"More."

"More what?"

"More than two women."

Costello put her fork down, hunched her shoulders a bit and tried to lean in towards me like she wanted to intimidate me, something I remember finding ridiculous because I'd been volunteering the information for her.

"So, Dr. Igarashi's core philosophy for CARP is available to any student who wants to read it, so I spent a bit of time reading her dissertation on how CARP was going to be put together, and I think by the end of it, I'm going to have four women as partners."

"Jesus, greedy much?" Costello said.

I offered the biggest apathetic shrug I could. "This isn't my plan, Agent Costello. This is what the Doctor has in her plan book. Her plan advocates that every alpha have a beta to tend to one of their four core needs - physical, mental, emotional and social. It's possible she thinks a beta could tend to multiple needs, but her dissertation's pretty clear on the fact that she thinks it's in everyone's best interests if there's a dedicated partner for each individual need, and that the needs are the only thing that can impede a student's growth. But there's also a section where she talks about how it's important to build the unit around the alpha, and to take into consideration all the other betas when you add a new one onto the group. So, I think she's going to add a new person to the unit either in the summer or during the beginning of the fall semester every year until I'm out of here."

"Wait, does that mean the women alphas are getting four men?"

"I mean, what did you think would happen, Costello? They were only gonna take care of the men? It's a breakdown of men and women in there, and everybody's getting something."

"Fucking Christ," she grumbled at me. "Do you alphas have anything in common? Do the betas?"

"Now that you mention it," I replied. "There are a few commonalities that might be worth noting. Don't know if they mean anything, but you asked so..."

"Tell me."

"So all the alphas are from relatively small towns while all the betas are from larger metropolitan areas. I've gotten to know all the alphas at least a little bit, and I think nobody's from a city bigger than a couple hundred thousand people, if that. All of the alphas are only children - none of us have brothers or sisters. None of us are particularly close to our families. We all did relatively well in school but were often somewhat ostracized because of our lack of social or interpersonal skills. We didn't have a ton of friends and so when we moved out here, we weren't leaving much behind."

"The good doctor gathered up herself 50 or so little Unabomber juniors and put them all under her wing, huh?"

I ignored her implied jab. "Now, by contrast, the betas are all well-integrated into their home lives, and their parents all seem completely aware of what's going on at CARP. The NDAs that the alphas and betas signed were different, so Julia's family know she's rooming with me, and that we're lovers, whereas my folks just know I have a roommate that I don't really talk about. The betas all seem to come from extremely low-income families, but have incredible athletic potential, although a handful of them aren't athletes but performers. Regardless, I don't think we have a beta on campus who anyone would say is less than an eight out of ten, and even then I'm hard pressed to say who, simply because I can't gauge the dudes."

"So, all of this is good info to have, Turner, but where's she getting the money for all of this? You said none of you are paying for your education, right?"

I nodded in between finishing off the last section of my club sandwich. "In fact, they're paying us to go to school here. We all get weekly stipends, both alphas and betas, and all the alphas were given a used car each."

"Are the alphas and betas getting the same amount of money?"

I chuckled softly, pointing at her with a french fry. "And now you're glad you waited until the spring to talk to me, because I couldn't answer that question until a couple of weeks ago, but yes, everyone's getting the exact same amount of money."

"So, where's the money coming from?"

I shrugged. "Way beyond my access level. My guess is that it's private money of some kind, but whose private money? Your guess is as good as mine. But it's somebody who's got a lot to burn."

"What do you know about your next beta?"

"Not a whole lot," I admitted. "Both Julia and I have been interviewed a number of times, both together and separate, about what kind of person we would want tending to our emotional needs, what kind of things we find attractive and unattractive about people, and it felt a little bit like we're being sized up for a new partner, and they're trying to find someone who will mesh with both of us."

"Is there going to be room for that?"

"Well, we're going to get shuffled around during the summer, and apparently the new room's going to come with a larger bed for the alpha. I was also exploring the campus, and there's a final dorm being built but all the rooms look like mini apartments more than anything. Like, it's 40 or 50 units, but each unit has three bedrooms, one master bedroom and two smaller bedrooms."

"What the fuck is this woman doing, Turner?"

"How the fuck should I know, Costello? I'm just a college student in this little program of hers."

"Okay, well, you keep your eyes open and we're gonna talk again in the fall. Anything more you can learn about what she's up to, you do it."

"Fuck you, Costello," I replied. "I'll incidentally spy for you, but I'm not gonna go out of my way to get myself off this gravy train."

"Enjoying the benefits too much?" she chortled.

"As weird as it all is, I haven't seen anything illegal going on." I stood up, shaking my head. "And right now, it just feels like you're chasing another thing you don't understand because you're afraid of it."

I was about to walk away from her when she reached up and grabbed my wrist. "Eyes open, Turner. You maybe ain't seen shit so far, but you will."

"So you say."

"You will."

She let me go and I stormed out of the restaurant leaving Costello to pay the check as I headed to my car and drove back down to CARP, thinking to myself that she had to be wrong.

She wasn't, and it wasn't long before I found out just how wrong she wasn't.