Sistemas embebidos utilizados

PEOPLE, SORRY, I've edited and condensed the story a little bit. For those who are still reading the story, you might find the chapter that you're looking for being adjoined with the previous or next chapter. I'm so sorry for doing it in the middle of the story!

aanndd.... I'm sorry so freaking sorry that I haven't updated in half a year. There are no legitimate reason, but I assure you, I won't be doing that again. Thank you so much for everyone who've read this story, and special thank you for all of you who STILL read this chapter despite me not updating for along time. You guys can forget me, but you don't, and that's something that I could cry about. (happy cry, of course) Anyway, this is the SUMMARY of the things that have been happening:

Andrea's poor, so she needs to get a job. Unfortunately for her, she gets a job at Alec's house, as his maid.

Alec's Andrea's enemy so Andrea's pissed and Alec's amused. Against all odds, they're getting close and Andrea's now know more things about Alec that didn't involve his sexual escapades.

Alec's got a huge obsessive stalker named Bernadette. Bernadette hates Andrea because she thinks

Andrea's a bimbo, so Andrea got back at her by holding hands with Alec in front of her. Turns out that the next day somehow Andrea's locker's filled with ROTTEN EGGS.

Now, what will Andrea do, and is it true that Bernadette's that rotten?

---That bitch Bernadette.

Funny how when you hate someone, every little thing she does becomes unbearable. Look at her, she’s eating peanuts like she owns the place. Burn! Oh, look, now she runs her fingers through her hair, she must think like she’s a model or something. Burn!

Yes, yes, I know. It’s infuriating and frustrating at the same time. You can’t look at her without being pissed, and then you end up getting pissed at yourself because you’ve been reduced into a pitiful ball of negativity.

But hey, I wasn’t kidding when I said that Bitch Bernadette has a rotten soul. Look at her, she was eating her yoghurt and salad at the school cafeteria. What kind of 17 year old eats salad and yoghurt and nothing else?

Ding dong. The pretentious bitches do.

I eyed her with all the malice that I could muster. She was opening her lipstick-laden mouth slowly, and then taking a bit of very very very tiny green, and then chewed it without any sound or movement. I swear she must be some kind of a witch to be able to do that. I myself couldn’t eat without producing nasty sound effects.

And not only she ate greens, she didn’t finish it!

What the hell. The more I watch her, the more I hate her. She threw away food. I always hated people who didn’t respect their food.

As she walked away from the cafeteria (of course with her sidekick Cindy tagging along at the back), Hannah whispered to me:

“That bitch Bernadette,” she nearly spat. “Who does she think she is?”

“Right? Riiight?” Tatiana chimed in, her mouth full with mac and cheese. “I told you she’s anorexic!”

I pretended not to see that huge chunk of half-bitten pasta fell from her mouth.

“Just seeing her makes me hate her so much,” another girl pitched.

“Totally. I so want to see her break down and cry.” Tatiana said as she, not surreptitiously, wiped away that half-bitten pasta from the table.

“Especially after what she did to poor Andrea,” Hannah patted my back.

Everybody looked at me as if on cue. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. In the end, I only forced a grin.

Hannah and Tatiana shared a worried look. Great, now I look like I was more traumatized than I actually am.

The truth is, the incident with the rotten eggs was foul and I also agreed that Bernadette needed to be taken down a peg or two. But then, I also didn’t feel comfortable when all of my friends acted like they have personal

vendetta against her. It’s my problem, I was the one who was supposed to deal with it, not them.

“Don’t worry, Andrea,” Hannah said to me with her gentlest, most motherly voice. “Everybody will hate her.

We’re working on it.”

“Yes, dearie,” Jenny smiled at me. She was a big-breasted girl, but one would be extremely wrong to think of her as girly. In fact, she could be quite heartless at most times. “All you have to do is give us a word, and she’s done with.”

As she said that, all the girls nodded at me, trying to give me the impression that they were on my side. I didn’t doubt them. They had been my closest friends; they accepted me despite my personality defect.

But still, 15 girls against 1? It didn’t sound fair to me.

As my conscience battled with my inner demon, I noticed that everyone was still waiting for me to respond, so I nodded, smiled, and said to them, for the sake of putting a show:

“We’re bringing her down, girls.”

-“Andrea, hey!” Alec’s voice sent a strong jab under my skin.

Going to the (ahem, Alec’s) my locker, post the Scrambled Incident, became something akin to a torture. Alec and I shared a lot of classes together, and hence, a lot of ‘coincidences’ of us meeting here. We did have our bonding moment, sorta, but that didn’t automatically make us close.

But the problem is, he seemed to think otherwise.

“Hey,” I turned around. Kind of embarrassed because right now I was standing right in front of his locker, trying to get my shorts for P.E.

“Are you sure it’s not your underwear?” Alec commented after a moment of look at my shorts.

“Shut up.”

“Anyway, are you okay?”

Crap. That was probably the zillion times he’d asked that to me, post the incident. And he’d asked it everyfuckingwhere. At school, after school, during school, at lunchbreak, nearly in every classes we were together, and of course, when I was at his house.

Good thing that now I’m assigned to clean the grandmother’s room, or else my ears would bleed hearing all those concerned questions.

“I’m okay,” I told him for the zillion times.

He raised his eyebrow, but didn’t seem convinced. “If you want help-“

“I don’t.”

“Well,” now, there was an obvious note of seethed anger beneath his voice. “I’m just saying, that there are ways for us to get back at her.”

“I will get back at her,” I said. “I don’t need your help.”

The frustration within his creased forehead was palpable, if not overbearing. He clearly disliked the idea of me defending myself with my own strength. “Look, Andrea, don’t pretend like you’re in this alone.”

“Well, it’s my locker which got busted.”

“But it might be because of me.”

I snickered. “Cocky, aren’t you?”

I wasn’t even sure what made me act like such a bitch towards him. I knew of his good intentions. I knew that he felt guilty that I made an enemy towards Bernadette. But then the sight of my textbooks being shredded, topped by the poodle that was rotten eggs…

“The boys are calling you a nasty lesbian because you punch boys who like you. The girls are afraid of you because you’re too violent and you always look like you’re going to go berserk.”

Suddenly, Bernadette’s poisonous words rang through my ears again. There was something seriously wrong with the way my brain was designed. I could never remember the important bits, but it never let go of the kind of stuff that could potentially damage my sanity.

“You should remember that this cocky bastard is the one lending you a locker,” he said.

“I bet she’s furious right now,” that came out without my consent, but we both knew whom I was talking about.

Bernadette might say that she was over Alec, but some facts proved otherwise.

“I don’t lend you my locker just to make her furious.”

The words hung in the air for a while before I could catch the real meaning to it.

Alec’s gaze burned into my skull as I tried my best not to stare back at him.

“Whatever.”

I quickened my pace, as his presence was suffocating me. But just before I was out of earshot, I heard him saying,

“I won’t let her get away easily, Andrea!”

-When I got into the school gym, I saw what it looked like a scene taken straight out from a cheesy 90s high school movies.

I saw two sides, two very unfair sides, at the basketball field. One was filled with cheerleaders and dancers and every female equivalent of jocks, the other one was only filled with two very skinny girls.

Looking at their stance, all the balls, and the absence of the coach, I say that a Dodgeball War is commencing very soon.

All of my girlfriends were on the winning side. Their expression promised sufferings and their stance looked like they were about to go to a war. Each of them hold a red rubber ball, with many more behind. Tatiana was on the very front, and a smirk was forming on her lips.

Across them were Bernadette and Cindy, looking appropriately scared.

Hell to the no.

“What are you guys doing?!” I screamed at them. “Stop it, stop!”

“We’re doing it for you, Andrea,” Hannah said as she swung her ponytail, her eyes radiated an excited light.

“We’ve been planning this right after we found out about your locker,” a dancer said to me, looking very proud.

“No worries, we thought everything over. Alec’s stalling Lola.”

I winced. “Alec?”

“Yeah, turns out he’s quite tight with the coach.”

I put my hand on my face. “Oh shit.”

“You’re getting the wrong guy,” Bernadette said. “I didn’t do anything to sabotage Andrea’s locker. I was as surprised as you guys.”

“P-Please believe her,” Cindy pleaded. “Please? Please?”

“Just get away from here, wimp.” Jenny spat at Cindy.

I bit onto my lips; words had refused to come to me. All I could do was stare at the way my girls looked at each other, and then, simultaneously, threw all the balls towards both poor girls.

It was, for the lack of stronger word, brutal.

They were all shouting names to Bernadette, and poor Cindy because she didn’t back off like they suggested. At first Bernadette tried to fight back, but then with the amount of balls being thrown at her, her fight only lasted for a few seconds before she decided it’s better to just squat and defend her head as much as she could.

“You bitch!”

“Slut!”

Bernadette fell to the floor as a ball hit her right on the stomach. She tried to get up, but then another one hit her on the head.

“Just drop dead and die!”

“Don’t you know any fucking shame?”

All the girls kept balls and insult to her. Cindy had started crying even though she was only hit a few times.

Bernadette, salute to her, didn’t let out any sound and stayed silent. After a few more minutes, the girls became bored. There were no reaction, and they were out of balls anyway.

My heart broke when I saw splotches of blue around Bernadette’s skin.

“Let’s get out of here,” Jenny commenced, and everyone followed her. They walked away from the murder scene, each of them stood a little taller than before, each of them didn’t bore any remorse about the calamity of their action.

I tried to search for Hannah’s eyes, but when we locked gazes, Hannah smiled. A proud kind of smile. A smile that you let out when you’ve done something good.

Not like this.

“That will teach her a lesson,” she said.

“We’re going to Betty’s after school, you coming?” another girl asked me cheerfully, like all of that riot didn’t happen five seconds before.

All of my shock, they all prevented me to speak, so I just shook my head. They pat my back, and some of them even hug me, before then all of them exited. Even after they were long gone, I still could hear the distant sound of them chattering. This was something that would be remembered for a long time.

It took almost forever before the sound of their chatter disappeared and I could hear Cindy’s sobs. Bernadette was still quiet, instead she was fixing her hair and looking after Cindy. Her lipstick was smeared, her mascara ran down her face. She didn’t look like the strong Bernadette I knew, but she still damn acted like one.

“They’re –hic- so –hic- mean,” Cindy sobbed. “You don’t even do anything wrong.”

“What can you expect from those bimbos?” Bernadette said in a tone that felt like sword. “Their accumulated IQ didn’t even exceed a cow.”

“But it’s not fair.”

I looked at them, their skinny bodies, their chaotic states. On normal times, Bernadette would have preferred suicide than being seen with her hair all static and frizzy.

I ran towards them, but just as I was about to get close, Bernadette stood and came to me.

I stopped like a coward.

Bernadette raised her hands, her claws slightly trembled, like they were itching to scratch me to pieces. I closed my eyes, and for the first time, I felt like I deserved to be beat, not the other way around.

But even though I waited for her to attack, nothing came. I anticipated for pain, but I felt nothing. Slowly, I opened my eyes, and what I saw was much worse than any physical damage she could ever give to me.

Her eyes narrowed, she wasn’t even angry, just greatly disappointed.

“I didn’t do it.”

As she walked away from me, my knees gave out and I fell to the floor. Her back was straight, even though she was limping a little.

She looked taller.

As soon as Bernadette’s away, Cindy’s sobbing died out quietly. Poor girl. Even without all of this, she always acted like she was in deep trauma. I was about to get up to go to her, apologize or whatever, but then she suddenly got up. Cindy wiped away her tears, and then looked at me. I thought I’d be less affected by her than I was with Bernadette, but her glare was hateful. Like she wished something underground suddenly came out and ate me whole. Unlike Bernadette, she was angry.

“Cindy,” I tried to call her.

“Slut.”

The word came out weakly, and even I wondered if I truly hear it or not. But then the word echoed inside my head painfully, throbbing me from the inside.

“Cindy, I’m so-“

She turned away from me, and ran towards Bernadette.

I stayed at the gym for a very long time afterwards, and even though I didn’t have any ball thrown at me, even though nobody was shouting me names, even though I had 16 good friends who’d stop at nothing to defend me, I cried.

I cried.

---Thank you so much for reading. :) You'll get answers soon. Before, we were concentrating to Alec and Andrea's relationship but now we move on to Andrea's personal growth. But before things get better, it needs to get worse.

Please vote or comment if you like the story. :)

In document Tesis doctoral. Arquitectura de un sistema C4ISR para pequeñas unidades. Autor: Israel Pérez Llopis Director: Dr. D. Manuel Esteve Domingo (página 126-129)