by M. D. Archer
Isaac grinned.
“Mr. Ellison, did you find some evidence? What was on the laptop?” Charged with adrenaline, I wiped my hands and marched over to the laptop, sitting on Mr. Ellison’s desk. I turned it around, but the screen was blank. “What’s going on?”
Mr. Ellison fiddled with his glasses, then lifted his shoulders helplessly. “I was about to tell you. The laptop self-destructed.”
27
Isaac stopped chewing to let his mouth hang open. “What?”
“But it’s not all bad news,” Mr. Ellison continued. “Harvey got me into the laptop before it shut down.”
“He did? What was the password?”
I eyed him. “Who cares?”
Isaac flicked me an annoyed look. “I do.”
“But—”
“It was ‘133_Ridgeway’, all right?” Mr. Ellison interrupted. “Now shush, both of you. I started going through the documents, but then… I don’t know how, but Logan must have managed to shut the laptop down remotely. I imagine it was a sort of fail-safe he set up.”
Isaac and I looked at each other. “We should tell him,” I said, then gave Mr. Ellison a summary of what happened with Logan following us to the diner. Mr. Ellison rubbed his temples as he listened.
“So, Logan was suspicious enough of you, Calliope, to be following you.”
“Um, yeah.”
I still hadn’t told them that Logan had shown up outside my house, but now didn’t seem like a great time to pile on the intensity.
“But he doesn’t have proof we took the laptop,” Isaac said. “And he must suspect that someone else got to the laptop because he was watching us when that happened, right? We were sitting there in full view. That’s why he took off. He realized we weren’t the people he was interested in.”
“Okay, but after all that, we don’t even know what’s going on?” I said, a strange sense of relief washing over me. Maybe I didn’t want to know.
“I didn’t say that,” Mr. Ellison said. “I managed to open and read a couple of emails before the laptop shut down.”
“And?” Isaac hopped up.
“As soon as I got in, a prompt reminded me there were unread emails, and I was able to get straight in.”
“Who were the emails from?”
“Logan.”
“Huh?”
“Both of them were from Logan, to Logan. He’d messaged himself a to-do list, as well as, according to the subject line, the Most Up To Date version of a document. I saw the email and managed to download and print off the document.”
“How?” Isaac said. “Do you have a wireless printer set up?”
Mr. Ellison nodded. “I never thought about that, but the Wi-Fi in this building is free, and I suppose the laptop must be set to auto-connect.”
Isaac slapped his head. “That’s how he got the laptop to destruct remotely. When the laptop connected to the internet.”
“Hmm.” Mr. Ellison grimaced.
“Whatever, it’s done now.” I waved my hand. “You said he had a to-do list? That’s something we want to know about, right? Did you read it?”
“I can’t remember it precisely, but it said something along the lines of ‘update list with test results, run analysis’, and—” He broke off to eye us. “—'order more kits’.”
“More kits. As in more test kits?” I stood up. “As in more of the thing he used to dose us with DcH? I heard him say something about doing it again and I didn’t know what it meant. Until now. We have to stop him.”
“I agree, Calliope. We just have to determine the best way to do that.”
“And we still don’t know what DcH is, right?” Isaac said, sounding disappointed.
“If I had to guess? I would say DcH is some sort of neurological agent.”
“A neurological agent?” Now my voice was high-pitched.
“It affects the brain,” Isaac said.
“We were exposed to a top-secret substance that messed with our brains?”
“But we don’t know for sure, right?” Isaac continued. “Or what DcH actually does?”
“Yes we do,” I said. “It makes people collapse.”
“That’s an assumption, Calliope.”
“Both Emily and Mitchell had higher levels of DcH on their test results than Gabby, who is fine, and my test was zero and nothing has happened to me.”
“She has a point, Mr. E. I know this isn’t exactly statistically significant, but it does seem like DcH might be having a bad effect on people.”
“The point of this exercise, this experiment, surely was not to simply make students collapse. There are much easier ways to do that. Not to mention the nature of the collapses—they occurred at different times and in different circumstances—it’s too sporadic to be intentional.”
“It was a side effect?” Isaac asked.
Mr. Ellison nodded. “Much more likely.”
“Why is DcH having such different effects on people?” Isaac asked.
“Well, one possibility is that at low levels it doesn’t have much of an effect, and at high levels it’s toxic.”
“But why do people have different levels? I mean, weren’t we all given the same dose?”
“It’s a logical assumption, but an assumption nonetheless. And even if you were, human brains and physiology are extremely complex. People have genetic predispositions, different levels of resilience. We don’t know why different people, who have similar structure and physiology, respond to the same stimulus in different ways.”
I thought I got it. People were different, and things affected them differently.
“But there is another factor to take into consideration.”
“What?” Isaac and I said in unison.
“I believe they are interested in trait variables,” Mr. Ellison said.
“Trait what?”
“Personality. As either a predictor or an outcome, I couldn’t tell.”
I jumped up. “They got us to do those personality tests! Twice!”
“Twice?” Mr. Ellison frowned.
“The grade twelve students all had to do a personality questionnaire at the Your Future session, but then they also did an online version later.”
“Interesting,” Mr. Ellison said. “What this suggests, by the timing alone, is they wanted to know whether there were any changes.”
Isaac also leapt up. “It was a pre-to-post experiment. Before and after they dosed you with DcH.”
“DcH is supposed to change your personality?” I asked, eyes wide.
“Perhaps.” Mr. Ellison brought his hands together in front of his face, thinking. “Calliope, I don’t suppose you know what metric of personality they employed?”
“Metric?”
“Which of the multitude of personality questionnaires did they use?”
“Oh, uh, yes.” I snapped my fingers. “It was the NEO. It’s a personality scale measuring Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Openness,” I recited. “So, neuroticism is like the tendency to be anxious or experience negative emotions, whereas extraversion is how much you like being around other people,” I said, getting into the swing of it.
I kind of got why Isaac and Mr. Ellison liked giving these little pseudo-lectures.
“And openness is kind of like curiosity and creativity.”
“Been doing a little extracurricular reading, have you?” Isaac looked impressed.
I nodded. After reading about the personality tests at Discovery Diner, hoping for some inspiration about what to do with my life, I’d done some more online reading and even downloaded a bunch of information.
“But those were just the high–level traits,” I continued, on a roll. “There were heaps of subscales under those, uh, headings. Like with neuroticism, you can be high in hostility but you could also be high in anxiety, which are quite different….”
I didn’t want to stop, but I’d just realized something. High in hostility and high in anxiety were perfect descriptions of Amanda and Emily.
“Isaac!” Mr. Ellison cried. “That had my PhD research question and my main hypothesis written on it.”
“Whoops, sorry,” Isaac said with a sheepish smile. “But you must know it by heart, and I think Callie is about to have an epiphany.”
I started writing. When I was finished, I tapped at the board and looked from Mr. Ellison to Isaac.
“Emily is anxious, Amanda is hostile, and I’m pretty sure they only became extreme versions of themselves after they were dosed.” I nodded to myself as it all became clear. “And Nikki? She’s always been a bit of a perfectionist, but she became, like, obsessed, and Mitchell, Justin, and Liam became total aggro–heads.”
“What about Steph riding down the north face of The Hill?” Isaac asked. “She’s always been like that, but maybe she’s even more of an adrenaline junkie now, right?”
“Hmm.” Mr. Ellison tapped his pen against his chin thoughtfully. “So, you’ve observed several different manifestations. Aggressive or violent behavior, risk-taking, and perfectionistic and neurotic behaviors. And you’re fairly certain these behaviors increased after the introduction of the agent?”
I nodded.
“So, perhaps the point of DcH is to enhance personality traits, which manifest in different ways behaviorally.”
“And differences in personality were why people reacted so differently to DcH?”
“Perhaps, yes.” Mr. Ellison leaned forward and picked something off his desk. “We’re on to something, because the document I mentioned is a list that appears to be of the grade twelve students, but more than that, it’s some sort of classification system. The students have been classified into one of four types.”
“I think I saw that list! I mean, I saw Logan with a grade twelve list with a column with Type at the top.”
“What are the types, Mr. E?” Isaac sounded breathless.
Mr. Ellison turned the piece of paper around to show us. Isaac and I both leaned on the desk to read. The same four symbols were repeated over and over again: what looked like an italicized capital A, an italicized capital B, a triangle, and an upside-down L-shape.
At the top of the list it said The Candidates.
“The Candidates?” I said.
Candidates for what?
28
“The first four letters of the Greek alphabet,” Isaac said. “Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma.” He pointed them out. “But there are a few people without one.”
I scanned the list until I found my name. I was on the list, but instead of a type, I had an asterisk.
“You’re an asterisk,” Isaac said.
“I can see that, thanks.”
“Why? And why do a bunch of them not have a classification at all?”
I took the list from him and read the names. “My guess is the people who didn’t show up to the Your Future session are the ones without classification. I recognize three of these names as no-shows. They weren’t there that morning, so they weren’t there for the truck crash, which means they didn’t get ‘tested’.”
“Which means they didn’t get dosed with DcH.”
Mr. Ellison nodded. “Sounds like a good explanation to me.”
“And you were probably asterisked because you had a zero result,” Isaac said.
“Why is mine different to the others, by the way?”
Isaac shrugged, and Mr. Ellison shook his head. “I don’t know the answer, but in the meantime, it’s worth tying in these classifications to your behavioral observations, Calliope,” he said.
I went back to the whiteboard and grabbed the marker. “What’s Amanda’s classification?”
“Alpha,” Isaac called.
“Emily?”
“Delta.”
“Mitchell?”
“Delta.”
“Steph?”
“Beta.”
Isaac continued reading out the classifications for each name.
Finally, I stepped back. A pattern immediately jumped out at me. “Everyone who had some sort of freak-out or collapse—Emily, Mitchell, Theo, and Nikki—are all Deltas.”
“Perhaps a Delta classification indexes some sort of instability, or a physically or psychologically adverse reaction.” Mr. Ellison nodded, looking back at the list. “The Gammas are by far the largest group, and I’m tempted to suggest, based on what you have said, that they weren’t affected by DcH. Or at least not sufficiently to manifest in observable ways.”
“Gabby is a Gamma, right?” I said. “And she had less DcH in her system than the other results I saw. And yeah, she seems the same. I guess she could be a little different but not enough to notice.”
“What about the Alphas and the Betas? I could hazard a guess about the difference, based on the nomenclature alone, but Calliope, what do you think?”
“The alpha of the pack is the strongest,” Isaac said.
I looked at the whiteboard. Amanda and Brooke were both Alphas. So were Justin and Liam. I drew circles around those four names. They weren’t the only ones, but they sure stood out.
“The bullies,” Isaac said. “I mean, I don’t know Amanda personally, but from what you’ve said, Callie, and the others… that’s what they have in common, right?”
I thought back to the last few weeks, how Amanda, Brooke, Justin, and Liam had behaved, and considered whether bully was the right description.
“Bullies for sure, but that’s not all. They’re mean, but they’re competitive as well,” I said finally. “Like, really aggressive. Justin and Liam kept fighting with each other, like trying to be better than the other.”
“The Alphas are people with aggressive tendencies, and after DcH, they were even more so?” Mr. Ellison said.
“I think so, yeah.”
“Was that the point of this?” Isaac asked. “To create violent teenagers?”
Mr. Ellison took his glasses off and sighed. “The aim may have been simply to see whether they could alter an individual’s personality, and violent teenagers was an effect. I am not sure whether it was intended or not.”
“Who we are is something they can play with?” I stood up. “Test crazy science ideas out on?” My fists clenched with anger. “Who does that?”
“Not to mention the rather perplexing question,” Mr. Ellison continued. “Who on earth would intentionally try to make a teenager’s personality more extreme?”
He had a point.
“Callie,” Isaac said suddenly. “It’s getting close to midnight.”
“What’s the significance of the time?” Mr. Ellison looked from me to Isaac.
“Mr. E, was there anything on the laptop about Cole?” Isaac’s voice was tight.
“I didn’t see anything, but then I didn’t get much of a chance. Why?”
“He called and said he had something to tell me,” I answered before Isaac could. “He wants to meet me at midnight.”
“Maybe you should try calling now?” Isaac said.
I looked at my phone. Why was that such a scary prospect? But he was right. I scrolled down to Cole’s number and put the phone on speaker. It went straight to voicemail.
“I think I’d better go meet him.”
“Not alone you’re not,” Isaac said firmly.
“Do you think he’s involved, Calliope? That he might be working with Logan? Is he a threat?” Mr. Ellison asked.
My heart hammered as I considered his question. I searched both my brain and gut for the answer. I cleared my head and thought about everything that’d happened over the last couple of months. Cole was fishing for information. The way he kept showing up and asking me how things were going. But was that for himself or for Logan? I couldn’t believe everything he’d ever said to me was just a ploy. And above everything else, I kept coming back to the sense that, more than anything else, Cole was trying to pro
tect me.
“No,” I said with confidence. “I don’t think he’s dangerous. I think he’s figured something suss was going on as well. He was right there, after all, at the health centre. I think he’s been trying to work out what’s going on like us, so no, I don’t think he’s involved.”
I could feel Isaac’s eyes on me, heavy, but I didn’t look at him.
“Somewhere public, okay?” Mr. Ellison said, his eyes moving from mine to Isaac’s.
“We’ll tell him to meet at Discovery Diner.”
“Make sure you have your phones, and keep in contact with me, okay?”
“Will do.”
***
As soon as I got outside, I sent a message to Cole, then jumped into Isaac’s car.
He started the engine. “Did he reply? Is Cole meeting us at the diner?”
“No.”
Isaac turned. “Huh?”
“We can’t let Logan do anything else, Isaac. We just can’t.”
“What are we supposed to do? We don’t know anything.”
“That’s not true. We know one thing, that the health centre is right at the middle of all this. I told Cole to meet me there and to bring his keys. Maybe he can get us inside and we can figure this out. He can help.”
“Can he?”
“What?”
“What happened to thinking Cole might be involved?”
“He sounded pretty genuine on the phone.”
Isaac sighed.
“What? This is kind of a big deal, Isaac, whether or not Cole is part of this. Can’t I wonder?”
“Look, Callie—”
I whirled around in my seat. “What? What pearl of wisdom are you going to lay on me?”
“Huh?”
I took in his confused expression, the furrow between his brows, and sighed. “Sorry but… this is a lot.”
“I think you might be being a bit dramatic,” he muttered.
“You do, do you?”
“I’m in the same situation—”
“The same situation? I was dosed with some potentially lethal substance, and now I have to worry whether Cole, the only guy—” I stopped as a look of pain flashed across Isaac’s face. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry, Callie. I get it. But maybe you should talk to someone else about it.”