Variant

Page 43

 

  I attached new air cartridges to the grenades.

  They were done. Three pepper spray grenades.

  It wasn’t a gun, but I suddenly felt much more in control. I had weapons. They wouldn’t stop an android, but they’d stop an idiot Society kid.

  I wanted to try one now, throw it out the window when I heard someone coming, but there’d be no way to not get caught. It was better to know that I had the grenades—that they might work—than to risk being caught.

  There were no cameras out here. The school had no idea.

  I gently put the grenades back in my pants pockets, picked up my gun again, and looked out the window.

  I couldn’t keep the smile off my face.

  I stood and positioned myself at the window, trying to get my mind back on the game. I couldn’t see anyone, but from the noise I could tell that our forward defenders—the guys at the streambed—hadn’t been very successful.

  A thought suddenly popped into my head. A deep streambed cut through this paintball field. There was no way that the origin of that stream was contained within the walls of the school; it had to pass through the wall somewhere.

  Noise came from the first floor of the building—muffled voices—and I instinctively turned to aim at the stairwell. A moment later a grenade skittered across the floor. It hissed and spun, spraying a mist of blue around the room that splashed across my mask.

  I called, “Hit!” and stood up to leave, wiping my mask. Out the window I saw Becky enter the city protected by five others.

  There had been no way to hide from that grenade. I imagined throwing one of mine into Isaiah’s dorm room.

  I laughed as I left the building.

  I headed off the field, my gun pointed toward the sky to show I was dead. A few refs lingered in the forest, but most of them were following the action into the plywood buildings.

  When I got to the streambed I followed it uphill, walking casually and not trying to hide. I’d gone only a few hundred feet when Mason appeared at my side. He had at least seven neon green hits on his arms and chest.

  “You’re not running now, are you?” he said.

  I didn’t look at him. “What makes you say that?”

  “You’re going the wrong direction. ”

  “I just want to see where this stream goes,” I said.

  He nodded and walked next to me in silence for a while. As we plodded along the dry bed I wondered whether it had ever had water in it. Maybe it was dry because the wall blocked it.

  The cold stung my fingers, now that the excitement and adrenaline were wearing off.

  “Is it December yet?” I asked.

  “No idea. I don’t keep track. ”

  Near the base of the wall, the stream disappeared into a culvert pipe, about two and a half feet wide. As we neared it, standing in the well-worn tracks of the Society’s four-wheelers, I bent over to look through.

  “It’s clear all the way,” I said, confused. “You could crawl straight through, be out in a minute. ”

  “No,” Mason said. As I stood back up I saw him pointing. There were two cameras flanking the pipe, about forty feet to either side. They were both pointed at us.

  “Oh,” I said, and gave a little wave to the cameras. “Well, that’s that, then. ”

  It didn’t dissuade me. If I was going to escape, I’d have to do it fast anyway. And maybe these cameras were like the ones back at the hospital where I’d worked—they weren’t being constantly monitored. They could just be recording, in case someone had a question later.

  “What do you think’s on the other side?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Guards. ”

  “You’d think we could hear something. Those four-wheelers are loud—wouldn’t the guards on the other side have those, too?”

  “They have campfires. You’ve seen the smoke. ”

  “Or maybe those are actually campers. Maybe it’s a campground. ”

  Mason snorted. “Well, if I ever get out of here, I’d rather take my chances in the forest than walk into a group of guards. ”

  I nodded but didn’t say anything. A Society girl, killed with a bright blue head shot, was walking through the forest and watching us. Mason slapped my shoulder and gestured for us to head back.

  The school was just barely coming into view when I spoke again. I pointed across the track.

  “You know what that door is?” I asked, as casually as possible. “The one by the incinerator?”

  “No idea. ”

  “Groundskeeping can’t open it and neither can we. Maybe it’s a security thing?”

  “Maybe. I think I saw Rosa go in there once. ” Mason’s tone was matter-of-fact and disinterested, like he was just making conversation. I tried to match it.

  “You did? Recently?”

  “No. A year ago, at least. Rosa. ” He glanced at me. “Isn’t she one that’s been here a long time?”

  “One of the five, yeah. ”

  “It was before the gangs. She wasn’t a V then. ”

  I nodded but inside my heart was racing. Rosa. She’d been here since the beginning. She had to be one of them.

  Chapter Twenty

  During the next few days I made a point of looking for Rosa, but watching her only added to my confusion. If she really was an android—and she had to be since she’d been in that room—then why was she always so quiet? She wasn’t influencing anything, wasn’t trying like Jane to prevent me from leaving. She was just there, shy and in the background. You’d think that if someone went to the trouble to build an android, they’d give it something to do.

  After class I went down to Becky’s office and rang the bell. It took her a little longer this time to come down from the dorm, but as usual she was smiling and happy.

  “Hey, Bense. What’s up?”

  “I had a couple questions,” I said, as she opened the door and let me into the office. I sat down on the couch, and she leaned on the edge of the desk.

  “Go for it,” she said.

  “Okay. You have all the records for all the students, right?”

  “What records do you mean?” She folded her arms. “There aren’t any grades. ”

  “I meant that letter you have—the one Ms. Vaughn gave me to give to you. ”

  “Oh,” Becky said, suddenly blushing. “You want to see what it said about you?” She turned from the desk and walked to a file cabinet. I stood to watch, hoping to get a glimpse of what else was in there. There weren’t many records, but everyone had a thin file.

  She pulled out the folder with my name and opened it. The envelope was inside.

  “Take a look,” she said, almost laughing.

  The envelope had been opened very neatly, cut with a knife. Becky seemed like the organized type.

  Inside was one sheet of folded paper. I pulled it out. It was blank.

  I looked up at her.

  “Seriously?”

  Becky nodded, grinning sheepishly. “I think that she does that so that you’ll have to find me and won’t get sidetracked. But none of the letters ever say anything. Just pieces of plain paper. ”

  “So, if I wanted to find something out about someone—where they’re from, how old they are—then you have nothing like that?”