Variant

by Robison Wells

Page 40

 

  On the fifth day, knowing that I was about to be discharged I got out of bed and looked around the infirmary. I couldn’t face the idea of going back to my room, back to the normal routine. I needed to find a way out of here. I needed escape plans and weapons and tools.

  I inspected the elevator through which Anna sent X-ray film and received instructions. It was short and built into the basement wall. I would have assumed it was just a cupboard if I hadn’t known better. There were no buttons or controls.

  The other cabinets had about what I expected: gauze and tongue depressors and latex gloves. There were syringes but no needles. Nothing that looked like a weapon of any kind.

  I took a bottle of rubbing alcohol because I vaguely remembered something from a cop show about how to use it as a weapon. At the very least, I figured it was flammable. And I hoped that whoever was watching on the cameras would assume my theft was a dangerously moronic attempt at getting drunk.

  “Hey, Bense. ” I spun from the cupboards to see Becky standing in the doorway. I did my best to look innocent as I put the alcohol bottle on the counter.

  “Hi. ”

  She was holding a clipboard against her chest, her arms folded. “I just need to ask you a couple of questions before you’re released. Stupid forms I have to fill out. ” She made a fake grimace and laughed.

  I nodded and moved to sit. I was wearing a pair of white flannel pajamas Anna had taken from a closet, and I felt like a kid as I climbed up onto the too-tall hospital bed.

  “There’s paperwork in this place?” I asked.

  “That’s ninety percent of my contract,” Becky said.

  I lay back onto the raised pillows. My head still ached, though the pain was duller now.

  “Shoot,” I said, staring at the ceiling. I didn’t want to look at her. There were plenty of people in this school that I strongly suspected of being robots. Becky was on the list. All of the Society was.

  She clicked her pen. “First, how would you rate the care you received while you’ve been in the infirmary?”

  I rolled my head to look at her. She smiled.

  “You’re kidding. ”

  Becky glanced down at the clipboard. “Scale of one to five, one being excellent and five being not good at all. ”

  I looked back at the ceiling and then closed my eyes. “This school, where we’re prisoners and people die, cares about good customer service?”

  “We don’t know that people—” Becky stopped.

  There was silence.

  I cracked open one eye. She was wiping her cheek.

  Her voice trembled. “I’m sorry. ”

  “It’s okay. ”

  We sat there for several seconds, Becky staring at her paper and me looking at the white cement ceiling.

  It was never going to be normal here. I’d been fooling myself before, back when I thought that I could actually enjoy myself. I had liked paintball and the good food and the guys in my gang and . . . Jane. But it was all a lie.

  Becky held up her clipboard. The paper was blank.

  “There’s no paperwork,” she said, and wiped her eye again. “I just wanted to check on you. ”

  “I’m okay. ”

  I returned to my dorm that afternoon. A few people had made get-well cards for me, and some girls collected plants from the gardens and put them in a vase on my desk. I thanked them all, but things were different now.

  I hid the bottle of rubbing alcohol in my pillowcase. I needed more ingredients before I could make it into a weapon, but that could wait. In my five days spent lying in bed I’d come up with a theory.

  My logic went like this: First, we were in the school for a reason, either to be tested or to be trained. I couldn’t guess which because neither really made sense. If we were being tested then the test was extremely broad and abstract. If we were being trained then you’d think there would be more focus on what we were learning—better teaching, stricter testing, higher expectations. Even the people who thought we were being trained as soldiers because of the paintball didn’t have any answer for why we weren’t being taught tactics. We were just making everything up.

  Anyway, if I assumed we were in the school for a reason then I should also assume that the presence of Jane and any other androids—I still hated using that word for her—would be to aid in the training or testing.

  So, if androids were the basis for the experiment or training, then it would make sense that they had been here since the beginning of the experiment. Jane was perfect evidence—she was the first of all of us.

  I decided to chart all of the students, all sixty-eight of us who remained, and figure out who came first. If my reasoning held up then they should be the androids.

  Unless they all were.

  And, of course, I had no idea where to draw the line. Were there five of them? Ten? Thirty?

  I made a chart in a notebook, and then walked down the dorm hallways, with Mason’s help, asking how long people had been there. I didn’t tell Mason why I was doing it, and I think that he might have thought I’d lost it. Maybe he wasn’t too far off.

  The V’s all offered up their info easily enough, and most everyone else did, too. When I got down to Oakland’s room, Skiver opened the door. Oakland was sitting in his chair, his feet up on the desk while he scrolled through his minicomputer. He glanced up long enough to see who I was and then looked back at the screen.

  “Hey, guys,” I said. “I have a couple questions for you. ”

  Skiver started to close the door in my face, but I stepped forward and it hit my shoe.

  He scowled and puffed out his chest. “What’s your problem?”

  “Just have a question,” I said. “Humor me. I’m trying to chart the whole school and see who’s been here the longest. ”

  “What do you care?”

  “I’m curious. ”

  He gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes in what was probably supposed to be a threatening face. “You got me out of bed for that?” Skiver acted tougher than his size warranted, but ever since the fight on our first day he’d taunted me as though he’d beat me in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

  “I realize that it’s a long way from the bed to the door,” I said. “And I apologize. ”

  He stared back at me, with more of his semi-threatening expressions.

  I pointed to the chair. “If you want, you could sit and catch your breath. ”

  Skiver opened his mouth, but Oakland spoke. “What’s the question?”

  “How long have you guys been here?”

  “Why do you care?” Skiver snapped.

  “You already asked me that,” I said calmly, watching Oakland.

  He looked back at me, thinking. Skiver seemed to be confused as to why he wasn’t hitting something.

  I decided to ease the tension. “I’m trying to figure something out about this stupid place,” I said. “But I need to talk to the people who’ve been here the longest. ”

  Oakland stared at me for a long time, and then finally spoke. “Jane was the oldest, wasn’t she?” His words weren’t sympathizing, but they weren’t his normal jerk self, either. It was a simple statement.

  I nodded. “Yeah. ”

  “About a year and nine months,” Oakland said. “I think. Not totally sure. Skiver’s less than a year. ”