by J. N. Chaney
“You’re doing all of this so you can be a criminal again?” I asked.
He scoffed. “The fact that you only heard the Renegade part of that speaks volumes on the lack of education you received in that school,” he said. “Being a Renegade isn’t just about stealing and smuggling. It’s about freedom. Once you have it, you can’t imagine a life without, and you’ll do whatever it takes to get it back.”
I didn’t feel too tired. The conversation had been interesting. Remi didn’t come across as the sharing type. Maybe he just wanted to fill the silence. The home-brew drink of his might have contributed, but I couldn’t be certain there either. Most likely it was the puzzle, working out what I was seeing. Too much information and not enough significance spun me up.
I heard a sound and turned. The man walking up behind me was not Remi. He wore a nondescript uniform with no insignia, not unlike the types I had seen entering the Union building all night. He held a gun and was on his radio. “Some kid’s up here. I’ll bring him in.” He gestured with the gun. “Move slow, boy. You’re trespassing. I don’t know who put you up to this, but we’re going to go have a chat.”
This was unexpected, to say the least. “Easy,” I said, slowly lifting my hands.
I moved carefully, putting the data pad on the ground and stepping out of the glaring light of the sign. The man was wearing armor under his plain-colored jumpsuit. It hummed with power. Whatever his normal job was, arresting a kid seemed well below his usual role.
“I’m just watching people for school.” I tried to sound confused.
He sneered and tossed a pair of cuffs on the roof in front of me. “You’re not much of a liar. Put those on.”
I leaned down to collect the cuffs when I saw Remi come around the corner from his most recent patrol. Before I could react, he had his gun ready and aimed at the guard. His eyes narrowed as his finger bent around the trigger and squeezed.
A round tore into the man’s back, causing him to stagger forward, toppling, and I retreated.
He tried to turn but the bullet had shattered something inside his abdomen, and he could barely move.
Remi ran up and pointed the gun in his face.
“W-Wait a second,” the man begged.
Remi didn’t hesitate, and I watched the second bullet tear through the guard’s skull, scattering brains on the concrete beneath him, his eyes rolling as his mouth dropped.
My throat closed up as the blood hit me, spattering across my shirt. Remi looked up at me. “Grab the gear,” he said, no hesitation in his voice. “We’ve got to move.”
16
I floated through the first half of the next school week, lost in my own head.
Watching Remi kill a man had sent chills through me that I simply couldn’t shake. I had watched him take a life, and all I could do was stand there.
So much of what we had done was for a practical purpose—moving wealth from one rich corporate elite to another. It was a game with loose rules and no real consequences. The death of the guard and the implications of it were all so very sobering.
I also had an inkling that more was going on than I was being told. The job of watching the Union guard station made little sense. I hadn’t come to any specific conclusions (yet), but when we dropped off the data with Evelyn, she was quite pleased. She also ignored the comments about the dead guard, chalking it up as “an unfortunate part of the work.”
Vance and I ran on the track outside of the athletics building near the damaged fence. It was getting warm outside and we had taken to jogging after classes when I didn’t need to sneak off. This routine provided us with an excuse for being in the area if we were spotted entering or leaving through the fence.
“Hey, Alpha, get your head out of your ass,” said Vance. “You almost went right off the track and into the bushes.” He grinned broadly and turned around to jog backward, easily keeping pace with me as I struggled to remember to breathe and pace myself. His longer frame gave him an easy advantage for this sort of thing.
“A lot on my mind is all.” I tried to smile but was too winded to fake it.
Vance turned around again and matched my pace. “Let’s walk a lap or two. You need to get it together before you have me fetching Maevik or a doctor or something.”
I tried to laugh it off, but I was breathing harder with each pace. We slowed past a walk to an idle shuffle.
Vance slapped me on the back and sent me into a coughing fit. He laughed at that. “Seriously, Alpha, you gotta keep in shape or all this thinking you do is going to land you nowhere. No point in living if you aren’t living. Know what I mean?”
I watched the gangly Vance hop from foot to foot, energy exuding from his every action, and considered his words. So similar to those spoken by Remi but with such a different emphasis. For Vance, life was an adventure in which he did what he wanted because he could. For Remi, it was a challenge, proving he could defy power and get away with it. The same coin, but one side made of hope and the other anger.
I lay down on the grass outside of the track. I wasn’t catching my breath and seemed to be hyperventilating. I thought I was having a panic attack.
Vance watched me go down and laughed. “Calm down, my man. Breathe into your hands and stop thinking.”
I did as he suggested, breathing a few puffs into my hands and then a few into the air. It didn’t take long for my heart to stop racing and the world to stop spinning.
Vance loomed over me while I recovered, beaming that smile and slouching against the sky. I sat up and saw Gil and Manson heading across the track toward us. They looked nervous.
Manson stepped forward, his demeanor toward me cool, but no longer with the antagonizing quality of our first meeting. Gil stopped a pace behind, doing his best to use the wider kid as a kind of shield. Gil looked like he was about to scream or throw a punch, but he said nothing and didn’t look my way, just stared with frustration at Vance.
Vance sat down next to me and tilted his head to look up at the two. “What’s going on? Spill it.”
Manson rubbed his bare arm with his other hand. Between his posture and his behavior, whatever brought them here was bad news. Vance tried to remain calm, but I could see him digging into the grass with one hand even as he waved the other one around nonchalantly.
“We just heard them talking. The teachers to Headmaster Whiles. They say they got proof you’ve been swiping answer sheets and selling tests.”
“I heard that Canton turned you in because he was in trouble,” Gil said.
Manson stepped back, shoving his weight into Gil. “Don’t bring that into it.” He turned his focus back to Vance. “They said Canton might be involved. I don’t know it. I say don’t accuse nobody if you don’t know.”
Vance stretched languidly and stared into the sky. “You say they have proof?”
Gil chimed in again, this time with his hands up to guard against any more sudden body checks from Manson. “They say that a bunch of students confessed to cheating.” He paused. “But not us. We’d never say. You don’t cheat and snitch. That’s just the long way to fail.”
I knew that Vance had been dealing in information. The accusation at Canton made sense. Their meeting at the theater didn’t look like everything was smooth. Clearly Canton had leverage and was trying to use it against Vance. Which meant there was something Canton knew that I needed to find out.
Vance sat back up. “It’ll blow over. These things happen. Fingers point and everyone yells, and in the end, the teachers have to save face. They think they’re so clever and watch everyone so carefully. Cheating’s just a different way to learn. Not like they know anything, with static curriculum and classes that could be taught by a robot.” He made it sound like a joke, but he was angry.
I got to my feet. “We’ll figure something out, Vance. We’ll find a way to deal with Canton or Headmaster Whiles. They can’t just throw you out.” I said it like I meant it. I wanted to mean it. But I knew the rule and that they could absolu
tely toss him. After all, my last school had thrown me away, and I hadn’t even broken any regulations.
Still, I wouldn’t let this stand.
Vance remained seated with an unconcerned smile, staring into the sky. “Everything will be fine, guys. I always find a way to land on my feet.”
Despite Vance’s assurances, I wanted to get my own plan into action. To this end, I started following Headmaster Whiles. I already had access to his personnel files and password. I had been using those for my own purposes for months now, but the files didn’t reveal anything that could help Vance. Professionally, the headmaster was a dedicated administrator. He was fair with employees, even when they faced scandals, and he had multiple commendations for resolving student conflicts that led to graduation and fulfilling after-education career placements.
I left campus and took a transport to Whiles’ neighborhood. I scouted the area with a few passes of the houses on each side, careful not to cross directly by the house without at least one building between me and the target. Remi called it the rule of separation, that the only time you directly interface with a target is during a job. Recon was done ideally with three separations, but one would do if things were urgent.
I found a house in the neighborhood to the east of his that was vacant. The yard was kept up, but only so far, and the building was clean but sterile. I took a lattice to the roof and then climbed into an open window, then I stood inside an empty bedroom and watched Whiles’ home with field glasses I had picked up. I had been building my own kit of tools but limited my purchases to things a student could be caught with or expected to have a use for. This gave me an adequate supply, but nothing as high quality or advanced as Remi’s.
Whiles had dinner with his wife and two children, and he played games with the kids afterward. He later browsed something on a personal pad and sat quietly in a home office. Nothing suggested malfeasance, though it was hard to tell what he was accessing on the pad. I would need to get into his access records, but that would have to wait.
I returned to campus to dig through his access logs and financials.
The access logs revealed he was looking through the regulations on expulsions. A bad sign for Vance. Though I had to admit, it was good to see him reviewing the information and not making a move first. It fit the character I had already seen in Whiles, a fair man that worked hard but wasn’t overly intelligent or creative. He had passion and dedication for his job but possessed a dull wit.
He had pulled up the backgrounds on eight other students in addition to Vance. I noted Manson but not Gil. Canton’s file had been accessed twice in the day. My file was not touched. I took that as absence of evidence and drew no further conclusion. In addition, he had looked into the files and grading reports of six teachers. Two of these, Parker and Nolans, had bad records with grading policies. Their files carried more than a few reprimands for grade fixing. Whiles’ own notations suggested firing and replacement, but a teachers’ coalition had given them clemency.
His financials were a dull and consistent flow of bills paid, salary earned, and occasional luxuries purchased or engaged in. No sudden infusions of cash or strange splurges. Of course, the financial records could be tampered with or he could be running an off-account strategy. If Mr. Kurns’s enterprise had taught me anything, it was that financial records only told a part of a financial story.
I considered the case of Mr. Kurns. Revealing his operations could be used as leverage, to show that Whiles didn’t know what was going on in his own school, discrediting him as an administrator. I was reluctant to burn Mr. Kurns. He had shown nothing but support for the students. He also had information on my off-campus activities, which could be a problem. Lastly, Vance liked Mr. Kurns, so he wouldn’t likely accept solving his problem in that fashion.
Canton was a piece of work. His file read like the gilded prince of a foreign land. His family was corporate and connected. He had several infractions—ones that looked far worse than selling tests and answers—in his files. He had been caught in an off-campus incident that left another student in a coma, and he had been caught with controlled substances on campus and even turned over to local authorities. Those records had also been suppressed. Canton deserved something bad to happen to him but existed in a protective bubble. I would have to consider changing that another way.
I turned in for the night, planning to follow Whiles carefully and spot anything in his routine that could suggest his life was different than it appeared in records. From my readings of the school procedures, an investigation into the removal of a student took three days from the submission of the complaint. With one gone, I needed to make tomorrow count.
The moment classes were over, I was at the gate and ready to track Headmaster Whiles, having given myself a medical release that would let me take a bus from the grounds to a specific facility. I ordered tests with a doctor that hadn’t started yet but was listed on the staff, so I could explain the whole thing away as miscommunication. It gave me several hours of excuse.
Whiles traveled light, taking the same public transport each day. I sat in front of him on the bus to avoid a conversation that could crop up from walking past him. I was able to keep tabs on his position through reflections in the glass. The clinic I had chosen for my excuse was beyond his neighborhood stop.
We traveled through town with many people getting on and off the transport. The stops moved along quickly—the Union kept the transports on time, after all. I felt a surge of excitement as I carefully surveilled Whiles. This was just like the gun heist except that I felt more involved. Maybe it was because it was my plan from top to bottom. Maybe it was because I was doing it for Vance and not the thrill. I didn’t have time to separate the sensations.
The bus arrived at Whiles’ normal stop. He remained on board.
I felt a jolt of encouragement. This would reveal new information. In my mind’s eye, I saw this becoming the smoking gun that could save Vance. Minutes later, I felt that jolt evaporate as my own stop came up. I exited the bus without looking back and took two steps into the clinic before heading back out. I crossed the street, keeping an even pace, like Remi had shown me.
The bus continued forward. I had memorized the route the night before. I knew there were three more stops before it turned and came back through. Whiles could get off at any of them. I ran through the particular buildings adjoining each. A market, which could be for regular shopping or something else. Stop two was a corporate apartment complex. Another place where illicit behavior might occur. The third and final stop . . . My heart sank. It was the stop next to his wife’s employer.
I retraced my steps back to the clinic and entered. I provided my name and was told that the appointment was in error, as I had planned. With my cover in place, I waited for the bus to return. I boarded and saw Vance’s hopes disappear. Whiles was seated with his wife. They both got off at their usual stop and I rode the bus sullenly back to Quintell.
I had failed to find anything that could help Vance. Any plan to discredit Canton would take too long to put in place.
I met with Vance in his room to deliver the news. “I can’t find a way around it. They have what they need to proceed with your removal. Headmaster Whiles did what he could, but there’s enough evidence and some teachers, and students, really want you gone.”
Vance leaned against the wall, giving me an easy smile and a shrug. “These things happen.”
I felt a tinge of anger. “Don’t you care? Don’t you want to stop this?” I could feel myself shaking.
Vance walked over and sat on the couch with me, his usual nonchalance momentarily gone, but even as he leveled with me, he remained strangely upbeat. “This isn’t my first removal. I’ve still got two years, so it probably won’t be my last.”
I wanted to explain to him the lengths I had gone to try and help. The powerlessness I felt that nothing I knew could change the outcome. Nothing except for the dirt on Canton. “Look, Vance, you should know that Ca—”
He didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t get a chance. The door opened and Maevik came in.
She nodded to me and then addressed Vance. “The decision came down. I’m to take you to the transport.”
I was shocked. “Tomorrow. The decision comes in tomorrow?” I asked it as a question because I wanted it to be true, but I knew then that it wasn’t. Vance had known about the accusations the day before Manson and Gil stumbled onto it. His three days were up.
Vance punched me on the arm again and opened a drawer. He pulled out a small packed bag and followed Maevik out. I followed him through the hall and out to the courtyard, my mind working overtime for a solution to this—for a way to let him stay. I didn’t want the only friend I had in this place to disappear.
“I can fix this,” I said, ignoring what he’d said to me only a few moments ago.
Vance looked at me, setting his bag down beside the transport’s hatch. “What?”
“I can figure this out, Vance. I know I can.”
He just smiled at me. “You probably could, Alpha. You’re the smartest guy I know, but seriously, let this one go,” he said, no hint of distress. “Just do me a favor, alright?”