Goldsmith looked over at Pete, who was jotting down God knows what in his notepad. Goldsmith craned his neck for a peek, but the man’s handwriting was sloppy, unformed. He finally gave up and wondered why Bunson was thrusting one shoulder forward while stretching the other upward and leaning his torso to the left, watching Harking’s line of sight the whole time.
* * *
The gyrocab started its descent into San Angeles. Cooley looked down at the city streets. They twisted and turned. Gyro and pedestrian traffic pulsated like fluid through the veins of a breathing beast. It was all gridlock, all the time on the sidewalks. People just pressed their shoulders against each other and relied on the flow of momentum to take them to where they needed to be. A few years ago, some bright San Angeleno entrepreneurs decided they were fed up with getting the grime of their fellow citizens all over their clothes from the continual physical contact, so they started selling long, shiny ponchos that could be tossed out after one use. It was easy to spot the rich people: they upgraded from the billowing, clumsy ponchos to multiuse waterproof jumpsuits. They made the wearers look like nuclear scientists inspecting a contamination site, but were effective and therefore popular; businessmen took them off when they reached their offices, spiffy three-piece suits clean underneath.
Throughout the streets, whistles chirped repeatedly. The wranglers. The city got the idea from that original bastion of overpopulation, Tokyo. The wranglers were easy to spot—they directed and facilitated the flow of traffic with brightly lit batons, usually in fluorescent white, for the masses to follow. The wranglers were big, tough guys who weren’t quite sharp enough to get hired as minimum-wage rent-a-cops like Harvey. Their sole purpose was to force you to go with the flow. If you didn’t follow their batons, you got jabbed in the ribs with them.
“Look at that clusterfuck down there,” said the cabbie. “Thank you, AIDS vaccine! Thank you, cancer cure! Thanks a lot, gyrotechnology! Life’s so cushy now that no one dies and we all get to climb over each other like rats.”
“I’ll get out right over there, thanks,” said Cooley. The gyro descended, floating down the remaining few hundred feet to a street in D Sector. He handed the cabbie some of Bunson’s money and stepped out into the rain. Yellow drops hit his face and trickled down under the collar of his shirt. Sure, it was polluted and supposedly harmless acid rain, but inside a school where it never got cloudy, it felt like a decently refreshing, exotic treat.
An arm reached out from the passing throng of human bodies, grabbing Cooley by the elbow.
“Excuse me,” came a stranger’s voice. Cooley glanced over at him, a working-class guy on his way to whatever shit job he had this week. There was a little boy and a lady who must have been his wife next to him. The lines in their faces were deep, even on the kid. Cooley wished he had some meds left to slip the man; they might have gotten rid of the cold that was making him hack and cough. He followed their eyes: all three of them were staring at the emblem on his blazer. Cooley pulled his arm back from the man’s grasp.
“Are you … really one of … them?” the man was saying.
“What?” said Cooley.
“Daddy, he is!” said the little boy. “Look at the patch on his jacket!” Even though Cooley got to the outside world more than most of the specimens, routine tasks still slipped his mind from time to time. He sighed and took off his blazer, wrapping it up into a ball and tucking it under his arm.
“I’m sorry, young man,” said the boy’s mother. “He’s never seen one of you Stansbury kids before. In person. None of us have, actually.” She looked up at him, desperation in her eyes. Cooley had seen it before on previous trips outside the tower. She was waiting. Waiting for him to say something memorable, something quotable and reassuring, something that would help her get through the long days in the rain, knowing that there was this bunch of genius kids working around the clock on making the world a more perfect place. He hated these looks. They made him feel like a fraud, a charlatan wearing the robes of a mystical healer ready to sell the townies snake oil in the name of a higher power. The wide eyes of the mother and father standing there kept darting from him to the skies, like they were expecting another EMP blast or worse at any moment and were certain that he, a specimen, would be able to do something about it.
“Excuse me, ma’am. But I’ve got to go.” The traffic light changed. Whistles rang out, echoing through the tall canyons of buildings down the city block. The wave of pedestrians rolled forward toward the white batons in the distance, sweeping Cooley along. He looked back at the family. The mother and father were still watching him go, soaking up every last detail so they could recount it to their skeptical friends. Cooley saw the little boy wave good-bye. He tried to wave back but could not. His arms were pinned to his sides by the crossing crowd. The hives of people in this town didn’t allow the space necessary for such gestures.
* * *
The specimens affixed Professor Harking with their characteristically focused gazes. They were unlike anything he’d seen anywhere else, even at Oxford. If he looked closely enough, he thought, he could probably see the little gears and synapses firing and turning over inside their brains.
“And now,” he said to the progression room on the other side of the plasma screen, “observe the following interaction.” The specimens watched as the screen cut to footage taken from a cable news talk show. It was dated March 28, 2036. Just the day before. President Lang sat on a small stage, glowing and calm as usual, across from a bearded man with long, stringy hair who could not seem to get his upper lip to stop trembling from anger.
“… and what you’re doing, Dr. Lang,” he said, his voice slowly rising to a screech, “you and the rest of your brainwashers cooped-up inside the ivory tower that is Stansbury—is creating a new elite of doped-up rich kids to take over the country!”
The show’s host leaned forward and smiled. “Whoa,” he said. “Now let’s slow down here for a minute and—”
“Actually, Stansbury gives away ten full-ride scholarships to underprivileged orphans each year,” said Lang, her voice smooth and sure. “And Stansbury’s contributions to the arts and sciences are not limited to any specific economic class. They elevate the quality of life for all Americans.”
“You’re turning kids into zombies!” said the bearded man.
There was a polite, unmistakably official knock at the progression room door. The footage froze and cut back to Harking. His on-screen image glanced over. “Come in,” he said. The door swung open and Captain Gibson entered. All of the specimens instinctively looked away except for Goldsmith. He started to gather his belongings because he knew what would come next.
“Good morning, Professor Harking,” said Gibson. “Sorry for the interruption. Mr. Goldsmith, would you mind coming with me?” Goldsmith stood up and headed for the door. Pete grabbed his notebook, but before he could rise, Gibson placed a hand on his shoulder. He gave Pete a cold, professional smile.
“Mr., uh, Pietrop—”
“Call me Pete, big fella. I guess just ’cause the kids are smart enough to get my name right doesn’t mean you are, does it?”
“Please stay seated. Miss Camilla Moore II will be your guide until Mr. Goldsmith is finished with his business.”
“But—”
“Your cooperation is appreciated.”
Pete sat back in his chair, shaking his head and smiling. “Bet you kids pick up the underlying themes in Kafka reeeeeal quick, right?”
Goldsmith glanced back at the other specimens before he stepped through the door. They all shared the same simultaneous look of contempt and paranoia. Who was on the hot seat now? Was it their turn next? Or maybe their best friend’s? He caught Camilla’s eye and for the first time thought she might have been more worthy of the title. True valedictorians did not hesitate. They were above reproach and the judgment of lesser specimens. Perhaps his victory was a fluke, a flaw in an imperfect method of evaluation. I’m sorry, Camilla, he thought. Sorry for
the things I did to you that day. I’m sorry, everyone, for trying way too hard to impress you so much. I was hoping you’d forget I’m a poor kid on scholarship without anyone at home waiting for report cards and acceptance letters.
And despite this internal reverie (the emotion of which shocked even Goldsmith himself), as the door shut behind him and he followed Captain Gibson into the hallway one final image sat frozen inside his mind: Harking’s progression room, fourteen specimens other than himself, Bunson not quite big enough to conceal that one conspicuously empty seat.
Where are you, Cooley? Run fast. It’s only a matter of time before we find you.
7
The water started popping into a boil, causing the kettle on the old-fashioned gas stove to rattle and click. Tin clattered against iron over and over again. The sound matched the patter of raindrops against the dormant air conditioner lodged in one of the two windows inside the five-hundred-square-foot studio apartment that Mr. Jonathan Clark Riley—Class of 2033—had lived in since graduation. Riley sat on the sofa and watched the muted television. The ring on his index finger tapped against the remote control, the third in a trio of loud stuttering sounds that was doing nothing to calm the most troubling stuttering of all: the incessant throbbing of his pulse.
Riley wanted to stand up and turn down the flame on the stove so the kettle did not succeed in driving him the rest of the distance from paranoia to total nervous breakdown, but he did not. Since the stove was near the window and through the window, people—well, let’s be more specific, not just people, but they—might catch a glimpse of him. This did not occur to Riley when he lit the stove’s flame only ten minutes ago, but he was nothing if not perceptive. So what if he had two post-Stansbury jobs: sobering himself up from the life of a drug addict and, as soon as it was physiologically feasible, selling black-market samples of his sober urine to other drug addicts who were not as fortunate as he in their battles with addiction. He still had his diploma, and that made him better than most of the people in this town, anyway.
Smith never called. They were supposed to get in touch just a few days ago, but now it looked like Danny Ford Smith had disappeared. Like the rest of them. But Danny was different. He was Riley’s friend, after all. The others were just names to go with faces that passed through the atrium in between progressions. He looked at their faces gazing up at him from the pages on his coffee table: four black-and-white yearbook photos on four separate pages, each with a thick red X drawn through them. He ripped them from the 2033 yearbook, spread the documents out along the center of the table, and placed the rest of the thick yearbooks he still owned (twelve total) around them in a semicircle of four-inch stacks. Riley’s own personal remembrance.
He looked at Smith’s picture on the page and could not bring himself to reach for the red marker used to do the deed. After all, what if Danny wasn’t gone? Maybe he was just … Riley racked his brain for possible scenarios, explanations for the end of his pal’s biweekly calls just to check in and confirm that they were both still intact and breathing. That was the way it ought to have been, after all. Smith and Riley weren’t going to go quietly like the rest did. (Admittedly, Riley had no idea how the rest ended up going, willingly or by force. All he knew was that they were gone.) And then he realized it was useless creating hopeful, against-all-odds situations to explain Smith’s sudden absence. The first disappearance was strange. The second, a coincidence. The third, a pattern. The fourth, a ruthless, unrelenting, and undoubtedly disturbing pattern. Old epistemological habits die hard, Riley thought: Smith’s disappearance would merely follow the logic of events as dictated by inductive reasoning and concrete evidence. To posit otherwise was a contradiction of irrefutable physical phenomena based on tendentious assumptions. His parents got what they paid for. Stansbury was so good at teaching him how to think that, even today, his brain instantly ruled out all possibilities of sentimentality and optimism in the face of what was most likely hopelessness. So he picked up the marker and, although he hated himself for it, marked a large (and he hoped, dignified) X through the face of his former best friend.
The kettle started rattling. Riley leaned back, looking at the last unmarked yearbook page on the coffee table. The one with his face on it. His Tabula rang. Got to be her. At eight A.M.? Who else could it be? He grabbed the trilling device. The silent television broadcasted a female news anchor with pancake makeup. The graphic banner in the top right-hand corner read: NEWS ALERT! STANSBURY SCHOOL SUCCESS!
“You call earlier than my parole officer,” said Riley.
“Our debut’s in twenty-four hours,” she said. Her voice was, as always, calm. No rattling kettles or tap-tap-tapping wherever she was calling from.
“It’s still on?” he asked.
“Of course. Unfortunately, Mr. Smith won’t be joining us, as I’m sure you’ve already realized.”
“I … I know.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Riley. I hope you see how much more important this makes you. And how much is at stake.”
“I know.”
“Do you still have what I gave you?” she asked.
Riley reached under the blanket on the sofa next to him and felt the rubber-and-steel angle of a loaded Glock 12’s grip. “Yeah.”
“Good. Just stay inside and don’t open the door for anyone. You know where and when to meet me tomorrow morning.”
“Right, right.”
“Everyone else is dead, Mr. Riley. You’re too crucial to let yourself—”
“Well, there’s this specimen who might come by and—”
“Not for anyone.”
“He’s harmless. Comes around once a month.”
“You trust him?”
“Well…”
“Don’t open the door for anyone. Especially one of the specimens.”
She hung up. Riley stared at the Tabula’s blank screen and set it down. His yearbook photo looked pretty lonely on the table. He reached over to the 2033 edition and found her name. There it was, on page 434—Miss Stella Saltzman. Valedictorian. Round face, the kind of girl you just knew would be a kind mother some day, the type that baked kick-ass chocolate-chip cookies. He tried to imagine anyone wanting to hurt someone so harmless and could not, but since he now accepted that they got Danny Smith, he was not feeling so good about any of their odds. Even her. Riley ripped Miss Saltzman’s page from the yearbook and placed it next to his. He looked at the two of them together, their pages side by side. The way she looked you in the eye made him think she had a beef with Stansbury, one that gnawed at her gut and kept her up nights. He never had the nerve to ask her what it might have been.
The Tabula rang again. Riley answered.
“Look, you don’t have to keep checking up on me, I—”
“Riley.” A male voice. Come on, place it. “Riley, relax. It’s me.”
“Cooley. What is it?”
“I need a favor. Piss man’s coming tomorrow. We need samples. I’ve got money.”
“It’s a bad time.”
“It’ll take a second, man. Come on. I need fourteen vials. That’s a decent pay day for you.”
“Sorry. I’m on my way out.”
“So I caught you just in time—”
“What? Where are you?”
“On my Tabula. Right outside your building. I’m coming up.” Riley heard a click and then footsteps coming up the stairwell. They entered the hallway—his hallway—slowly, methodically getting closer. He grabbed the Glock 12, flipped off the safety, and rushed over to the door. He jammed his ear against it, listening. Ladies and gentlemen, the Class of 2033! rang out the voice of some cheeky game show host in his head. Where are they now?
Between the approaching footsteps and the pounding of his own heart, Riley did not even hear the kettle on the stove blow out its high, sharp whistle. It sounded just like a train about to leave the station for some far-off place.
8
Captain Gibson’s strides were long, powered by a sense of purpose as h
e walked down the hallway toward the elevator bank at the far wall. Goldsmith kept up easily, his long specimen legs pumping along at half the speed, but covering just as much ground. Gibson was tall, too—for someone who didn’t grow up on the med cycle, that is—and he was light on his feet, with the well-proportioned frame of an athlete growing old.
“President Lang apologizes for the news reporter,” the captain said in midstride, his gaze still fixed on his destination. “The guy called her and threatened to stir up trouble if we didn’t give him access. The school can’t afford that, with the big vote coming up tomorrow. You’re the best we’ve got. She knows you can handle him.”
The reporter? Goldsmith thought. You think I don’t know where we’re headed right now? You think Pete’s a fucking blip on my radar at the moment? Shut up and let me get my game face on, for Christ’s sake. “Who’ve we got downstairs?” he asked aloud.
“Eleven specimens. Male. We popped a test on them a day early. They’ve all got dopazone traces in their bloodstreams.” Gibson looked at Goldsmith and smiled. “Piece of cake for you.”
They arrived at the elevator bank. A pod slid open. Gibson held the door for Goldsmith and he stepped inside. Gibson followed and swiped his key card against the sensor pad above the rows of buttons. It beeped and he hit that unmarked button, which lit up.
“What’s with the cold-feet look?” asked Gibson. “Come on. You’re the best. It’s the same with every valedictorian, trust me. They all want the glory, but when it comes down to it—”
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