Revolution 19

by Gregg Rosenblum

  Nick watched in horror, helpless, as the needle entered his vein with a pinch. Something was injected that burned brutally up his arm, into his chest. He tried to scream, but the pain took his breath away. He slumped down in his chair, unable to speak. The burning faded, but he found himself unable to move. His vision was tunneled, blurred at the edges; he could no longer see Gapper. The light in the room became painfully bright. The metal cuffs unclasped and retracted back into the table. Nick continued to sit slumped forward, arms stretched out in front of him.

  The Lecturer walked up to Nick and reached out to touch his shoulder. Nick waited for the electric pain, and he couldn’t even brace himself, but instead the robot pushed gently on Nick’s shoulder, straightening him back against the chair. He then pushed up on his chin, lifting Nick’s eyes to the front of the classroom. The bot’s touch was cold and lifeless. Nick wished he could break its fingers off.

  “Your autonomic functions remain intact. You can blink and breathe. And you can listen,” said the Lecturer. “Now, we continue.”

  CHAPTER 22

  THE MORNING COMMUTERS STOOD IN SINGLE FILE TO ENTER THE STATION. Each Citizen had to walk through a set of sliding glass doors to be scanned, and Kevin could feel his heart beating through his chest. It had been his idea to take the trans and test out their new dummy chips—if their chips couldn’t even get them through the gates of a trans station, they certainly wouldn’t work at school—but now that he was here, he was nervous. When it was his turn, he hesitated until finally Lexi gave him a shove in the back. The doors flashed green and opened. The dummy chip had worked. He didn’t realize until that moment that he’d been holding his breath. He let it out and followed Cass and Lexi to the underground platform. The white tiled walls, curved at the ceiling in the shape of a cylinder, were bare except for black lettering that read THIRD STREET and below that, in smaller lettering, PEACE, PROSPERITY, PROTECTION. There was only one exit. Easy to block. Nowhere else to run.

  The trans glided into the station, and it was silent and fast and smooth and beautiful, and he couldn’t help being impressed. He’d only heard about these kinds of high-speed trains.

  They rode in silence. The trans was also bright white on the inside, except for black 3D vid screens that ran along the wall at eye level, projecting images and audio of happy Citizens—constructing a building, eating lunch at an outdoor square with a fountain, riding scoots, waving at a sphere bot as it floated past. Each vid’s audio projected somehow to just the space in front of the vid—Kevin tested it by moving around the trans, until Cass gave him an angry glare and he stood still.

  They stayed on the trans for two stops, and then Lexi led them off and up to the street.

  “Cheer up,” said Lexi to Kevin. “It’s not that bad. Just sit at your desk and stay quiet. You’ll be the shy new kid. Everyone will ignore you.”

  “Let’s go over the story again,” said Cass.

  “I’ve got it,” said Kevin, annoyed. They had gone over their plan twenty times; twenty-one wasn’t going to make a difference.

  “Last time,” said Cass. “We keep it simple. We’re brother and sister, just out of re-education. We were freemen, but we don’t remember much of anything. And we don’t remember re-education either. We’re separated from our parents, so the Tanners are fostering us for now until the bot administration works something else out. Got it?”

  “I already said I got it,” said Kevin.

  “First we check you in,” said Lexi. “Get you assigned to classes. Then you just stay quiet and try to not do anything stupid.”

  The school was a three-story concrete and brick structure, encompassing an entire City block. Kevin slowed, stunned by the size of the building and the dozens of kids lingering by the front door. Lexi nudged him forward, then helped Cass and Kevin ease their way through the crowd, saying hello to a few people on the way without stopping.

  Inside, the hallways were wide, with high ceilings, but still seemed crowded. “How many kids go to your school?” he whispered. School at the Freepost had been about twenty-five kids total, split into upper and lower groups, taught in the open unless bad weather forced them into the central shelter.

  “I don’t know,” said Lexi. “A couple hundred, maybe?”

  “A couple hundred?” said Kevin. “That’s like our whole Freepost jammed into one building!”

  Lexi shushed him, eyeing the kids scattered throughout the halls, but Kevin stopped in his tracks.

  At the far end of the hallway a sphere bot hovered. The students seemingly ignored it, but nobody got too close—a zone of empty space surrounded it, despite the crowd.

  It began moving slowly down the hall toward them. A path through the crowd of students cleared as it moved.

  “It sees us,” said Kevin. He took a step back, putting his hand on Cass’s shoulder. They were going to have to run; it would be hard to move quickly through the crowd …

  “No,” said Lexi. “Keep walking.”

  They drew closer to the bot, and Lexi casually moved to the wall. Kevin held his breath and stared at her back. Any second now, it would start flashing, belting orders in its endless drone, and then the Peteys would come …

  The bot slid past them. He let his breath out, and Cass heaved a sigh at the same time. He almost laughed out loud with relief.

  Outside Kevin’s first class, History, Cass tried to give him a hug. “I’m fine,” he said, pushing her away even though he’d never felt so nervous in his entire life. “I’ll see you at lunch.”

  Inside, eleven students sat in three rows at long metal tables, staring at him. The teacher, a bald middle-aged man with a thin brown beard, tapped on a screen at his desk. “Kevin?” he said, without looking up from the screen.

  “Uh, yes,” Kevin said, relieved that his name was registered. After Mrs. Tanner called the main office that morning, Farryn had hacked into the school records and planted supporting data, enough to get them registered and print their class schedules without any problems.

  “Take a seat,” the teacher said, pointing at the tables. Kevin hurried to the back row and sat down next to a blonde girl with glasses who gave him a quick curious glance but didn’t smile.

  “Class,” said the teacher, still not looking up from his desk. “We have a new student, Kevin. Kevin, class. Class, Kevin. I’m Mr. Peterson.” Finally he looked up at the class. “All right,” he said, “where did we leave off yesterday?”

  Nobody spoke.

  “Nobody remembers what we did yesterday?” said Mr. Peterson.

  The class remained silent. Mr. Peterson sat down. “Does anybody even remember what they had for breakfast this morning? I had toast with blueberry jelly and coffee.” He pointed at the girl sitting next to Kevin. “Sarah. Where did we leave off yesterday?”

  “We were reviewing the Great War of 2023, and the growing use of military robotics.”

  “Correct,” said Mr. Peterson. “Thank you. And what did you have for breakfast?”

  Sarah hesitated. “I don’t see how that’s relevant,” she said.

  “Humor me,” said Mr. Peterson.

  “Uh, eggs. A cheese omelette.”

  “Delicious,” said Mr. Peterson. “I like eggs.” He said nothing for a few moments, just staring at the back wall behind the class. A few students shifted in their seats, but nobody spoke.

  Mr. Peterson slapped his hand down on his desk. “All right, back to work. War of 2023. The last great gasp of the former United States of America. Great innovations in robotic technology, drones and robot soldiers beginning to replace rather than just augment humans, et cetera, et cetera.” He tapped for a few moments on his desk screen. Video screens rose up from the tables in front of each student. “As usual, a quiz will follow the lesson, so please pay attention.”

  The small screen in front of him displayed, in vivid 3D, an aerial view swooping down onto a battlefield. Kevin was blown away by the image quality, which was far better than the 3D on the comms. The screen
focused on a soldier bot, similar to the Peteys but cruder, bulkier, and moving less smoothly.

  Sarah tapped him on the shoulder, making him jump in surprise. She pointed at a small earpiece next to Kevin’s screen, then tapped on her ear. Kevin nodded. “Thanks,” he said, offering a smile. She frowned and turned back to her lesson screen. Kevin fit the earpiece into his left ear and began listening to the narration.

  “… with advances in artificial intelligence, the War of 2023 saw the emergence of early autonomous robotic military units, acting with only limited interaction from human commanders. Previous robotic units served merely as drones and had to be fully controlled step-by-step …”

  The narrator continued. Kevin forced himself to pay attention to the audio; he didn’t want to flunk his first quiz. But it was the video that continued to interest him—the 3D was seamless, and he was trying to get his head around how the tech worked, but he really had no idea.

  A half hour later, the narration went silent, and the screen went blank for a moment before filling with multiple-choice questions. “You will have fifteen minutes to complete the content review quiz,” his earpiece said. “Begin now.”

  Kevin’s heart began to pound hard, but after the first few questions he realized the test was ridiculously easy—he tapped through the answers in ten minutes, getting them all correct. He removed the earpiece and sat back, wondering what he was supposed to do. Apparently, nothing—the rest of the class had also finished the quiz and sat silently. Mr. Peterson was reading something on his screen and ignoring the students.

  A bell rang, and everyone jumped up and headed for the door. Someone tapped him on the shoulder, and he quickly turned. Sarah, the girl who had sat next to him, stood in the doorway. She stared at him seriously, her eyes bright blue behind her glasses.

  “You’re new,” she said.

  Kevin nodded. “Yes,” he said.

  “Transfer from another school? From another City? Or a new Citizen?”

  “Uh, new Citizen,” he said.

  Now Sarah’s face broke into a smile. “That’s wonderful. You’re very lucky to have joined us. The City, our community of Citizens, I mean.”

  “Thanks,” Kevin said. Sarah’s bright eyes didn’t blink, and her stare was making him uncomfortable. “Well, I have to get to my next class …”

  “Were you rescued from the wild?” Sarah said.

  Rescued from the wild? thought Kevin. What was he, an animal? “I was a freeman, but I don’t remember anything, really.” As he said it, images flashed through his mind: Their little shelter in Freepost. The kidbons. Tech Tom’s workshop. One of the gentle whites from the flock, cooing softly in his hands. Everything lost. But not forgotten. It felt like a horrible betrayal, pretending that he didn’t remember.

  “You were saved. What a blessing.” She put her hand on his shoulder and leaned toward him.

  “Yeah, well, I’ve gotta go to my next class,” said Kevin, backing away. He couldn’t stand here for one more second hearing that he was lucky to be in the City. That his family being torn apart, his friends being captured or killed, was some sort of blessing.

  Sarah stared at him, not blinking. He turned and hurried off, not even sure he was headed in the right direction. It didn’t matter. He just needed to get away.

  CHAPTER 23

  CASS HELD HER BREATH AS THEY APPROACHED THE CLASSROOM. SHE FELT grateful that she had most of her classes with Lexi, who pushed her through the door with a gentle nudge on her shoulder. She forced her feet to move toward an empty seat in the back, and then she realized with a jolt that she knew two of the ten students seated there.

  Lexi sat down next to Amanda, who leaned over and whispered something in her ear. Lexi shook her head, said “Later,” and then ignored Amanda, who leaned back with her arms crossed over her chest. That left only one open seat for Cass, in the back row, next to Farryn. Wonderful, she thought. She sat down and focused on the front of the classroom—the teacher’s desk was empty and there was nothing to look at except for a black vid screen mounted on the white wall.

  “Do you have my artwork yet?” Farryn leaned over, his mouth inches from her ear.

  His warm breath tickled her, and she resisted the urge to shove him away. Instead she just continued to ignore him.

  “I may have to charge interest soon,” he said. “A second painting, maybe.”

  Just then a loud bell rang, and the teacher rushed into the classroom. She was surprisingly young, probably in her twenties, and stick-thin. “Sorry I’m late, class,” she said, sitting down and tapping on a vid screen built into her desk. “I see we have a new student today,” she said, looking around the classroom and finding Cass. She flashed her a quick smile that Cass was too nervous to return. “Welcome …” She glanced back down at her screen. “… Cassandra.”

  Cass knew she was supposed to stay quiet, but still, Cassandra was just not acceptable. “Just Cass, please, ma’am.”

  The teacher nodded. “Cass. Sure. I’m Ms. Hawken.” She cleared her throat. “Okay, class, today we’ll be doing another vocational aptitude assessment. You are painfully familiar with the format, of course. Cassandra, just answer the questions honestly. There are no …” She stopped mid-sentence as a sphere bot slid into the classroom.

  Cass sat up, rigid in her seat. She was trapped. There was only one exit, and the bot was blocking the way to the door. “CITIZEN TEACHER,” said the bot. “PLEASE COME WITH ME.” It floated back out of the room.

  Farryn coughed, then dropped his comm on the floor. It landed next to Cass’s foot. She bent down to pick it up, and he bent down, too, and whispered, “It’s okay. Just stay calm.”

  Cass handed him his comm and nodded, but calm was the last word in the world she would use to describe how she felt.

  Ms. Hawken tapped on her desk screen, and videos rose up out of the tables in front of each student. She hurried after the bot without saying another word.

  The first question flashed on Cass’s screen—Do you prefer working indoors or outdoors? All Cass could think about was the sphere bot that had just been bobbing fifteen feet away. Was it asking Ms. Hawken about her right now? If it came back and scanned her, would the dummy chip really hold up? When it checked the class records carefully and looked into the details of the new girl, it would no doubt realize.... Or maybe it already had discovered her, and was just guarding against her escape until Peteys arrived....

  She forced herself to focus on her vid screen and reread the first question. She pressed “outdoors.” The question faded away and a new question rose up: Do you drink coffee? Cass had no idea what coffee drinking had to do with her “vocational aptitude” … not that she really knew what vocational aptitude meant, anyway … but she pressed no. Coffee made her feel like she was having a heart attack.

  The questions continued. Some were clearly work-related—Do you like building things?—and others were just odd—In a 10’ by 10’ room, how many people would it take to make the room feel too crowded? She struggled to answer the questions, thinking mostly of the bot and Ms. Hawken.

  Ms. Hawken returned to the room, looking like all the blood had been drained from her face. She sat down at her desk and quietly stared into the distance. Cass remained tense. Would the bot be floating back in to take her next?

  After a half hour the questions finally ended. The screen went blank for a moment, then read, “In the absence of intelligence quotient data and academic performance history, current aptitude assessment is incomplete. Preliminary possibilities, assuming average intelligence, include physical education teacher, sanitation engineer, and delivery driver.”

  The bell rang, and everyone jumped out of their seats and headed for the door. In the hallway, kids were whispering about Ms. Hawken: “The bot must have been questioning her,” she heard a girl say. “Some true believer must have turned her in. You always could tell she didn’t like the bots.”

  Farryn touched her elbow, and she jerked her arm away. He held his han
ds up in mock surrender. “Relax,” he said. “Just wondering what your vocational aptitude is. I don’t think they have black-market artist on the list.”

  Cass shrugged. “Delivery driver. Or sanitation engineer, whatever that is.”

  “Garbageman,” said Farryn.

  Cass glared at Farryn. “Wonderful. Garbageman. Flock-drop duty the rest of my life.”

  “Flock drop?” said Farryn.

  “Never mind,” said Cass.

  Amanda walked up to Lexi, frowning. “Why didn’t you tell me Cass was coming to school?” she said.

  “Quiet,” said Lexi. “Keep it down.” She began walking, and Amanda, Cass, and Farryn followed. “I didn’t know until one o’clock in the morning,” she whispered. “But you can’t be all crashed out about it. At least not so loudly.”

  “You’re not telling me anything anymore,” said Amanda. “Except when you need favors.”

  Lexi shrugged. “Unusual circumstances.”

  “Whatever,” said Amanda. “I have to get to second period.” She hurried away up a flight of stairs. Lexi watched her go and muttered, “Rust.”

  “You’re welcome for the records hack, by the way,” said Farryn to Cass. “What are you doing in school, anyway?”

  “Blending in,” said Cass. “Hiding out in the open.”

  “Well, good luck with that,” said Farryn. “You’re hard not to notice.” He turned around and walked away.

  Second period, Civics, passed uneventfully. It was another forty-five minutes of staring quietly at a video screen, learning about the governmental structure of the City and “the grand administrative partnership between robotic and biological intelligence.” It made Cass want to kick in the screen. But she kept quiet and passed the quiz. At least the class was bot-free.