Prodigy

by Dave Kalstein

  Goldsmith got chills. “Why?” he asked.

  “She was a quiet girl. Bookworm, I guess. Kept to herself mostly. Rumor was she couldn’t hack conducting peer reviews. She asked Headmaster Latimer and President Lang to give her title to the number-two specimen in her class, but they wouldn’t do it. They probably figured being valedictorian wouldn’t mean anything if everyone knew the top specimen didn’t want to be one.”

  Goldsmith started to digest everything. Five delinquent specimens and a disillusioned valedictorian had only one probable thing in common: major-league chips on their shoulders when it came to Stansbury School. But this link aside, there was nothing indicating that they were friendly after graduation. Hurley’s information took everything a step forward, but not enough to fill in gaping holes of the big picture or answer the question of Cooley’s involvement. The only other source of information Goldsmith could think of tapping was taboo: the school’s sealed file index, which contained detailed information on each and every specimen past and present. There was no way to get to it without the administration granting access.

  But first things first. Pete running amuck inside the tower was unacceptable: the situation needed to be rectified and contained until after today’s Senate committee vote. Goldsmith decided to contact President Lang, inform her that the reporter had violated the conditions of his guest status, and request that she have the security detail track the man down, rough him up, and toss him in an examination room immediately. And then he—not Camilla—would take Pete one-on-one and break him, find out what he knew and, how he knew it.

  “Hey,” said Hurley, oblivious. “Want to hear a funny story about that William Alvarez?” He was in his storytelling zone and didn’t wait for Goldsmith to answer. “Back during his senior year in ’33, he was in a language progression—conversational Spanish—and his professor was this real beauty, Señorita White. Mr. Alvarez bet the rest of the specimens ten dollars apiece that he’d plant a kiss on the señorita before the end of the semester. So she calls him up to the front of the room for the verbal portion of his final exam. She says, ‘Hola, Señor Alvarez.’ And then he throws this sly grin over his shoulder and gives her a big old smooch with tongue and everything. She starts freaking out and Alvarez says, ‘Hey, I thought you said this was an oral examination!” Hurley started chortling uncontrollably at this punch line. Goldsmith thought of Alvarez with a red X over his grinning face of a class clown, the first of five to die, and decided not to rain on the yearbook editor’s parade.

  He headed for the door, thinking of those confidential records on the dead specimens locked inside the administration’s computer network. Before he reached the yearbook office door, his Tabula beeped, announcing the arrival of a new e-mail. Goldsmith scrolled to the message. It read:

  I’m President Lang’s 1:30 lunch appt.

  Will keep her occupied as long as possible.

  Remember:

  All great truths begin as blasphemies.

  Regards,

  P.

  Goldsmith checked his watch: 12:47. He ran for the elevator bank.

  * * *

  Cooley sat on the edge of his bed, tying up the dog-eared laces on his black loafers. Sadie stood before the mirror in the bathroom, carefully reapplying her makeup. Cooley wondered if she was serious about running away with him despite her hear-no-evil-see-no-evil routine over breakfast, and thought it was strange she didn’t even ask what kind of trouble he was in when he mentioned it half an hour ago. The door to his dorm room burst open. Goldsmith barged in, uncharacteristically frantic, unkempt. His carefully parted blond coif was askew, a golden lock hanging down over his forehead. Cooley jumped up.

  “What—,” he started to say, but Goldsmith grabbed him by the tie and threw him against the wall.

  “William Alvarez, Monica Miller, Alberto Munoz Santana, Daniel Ford Smith,” Goldsmith said, his eyes scanning Cooley’s face. Cooley stared back at him, clueless.

  “William who?” he said, wondering just what the hell had been happening to the course of his life over the past hour.

  One thought ran through Goldsmith’s mind: the bastard didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink, his eyes betrayed no recognition, he had no idea what the fuck these names meant or to whom they belonged. And for some reason the school wanted him to burn anyway.

  Sadie stalked out of the bathroom and shoved Goldsmith away from Cooley. “What the hell do you want with him?” she hissed, staring him down, resentment and hate in her eyes. She shoved Goldsmith one more time. He looked down at her, shocked. Twelve years of progressions with Sadie Sarah Chapman—a diligent med cycle adherent—and not once had he ever seen the universally acknowledged Hottest Girl at Stansbury this way.

  Cooley stepped in between them, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Chill out, okay?” he said softly. “He’s trying to help me get out of this.”

  She shrugged his hands away and stepped back, once again locking eyes with Goldsmith. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said.

  “I happen to be the only thing standing between your boyfriend and a multiple-homicide charge that everyone in this tower except for me believes he’s guilty of,” Goldsmith replied. “So maybe you should be.” Sadie looked away, back over at Cooley. Cooley grabbed Goldsmith and pulled him close.

  “Now it’s multiple homicides?” he said, trying to hide the tremor in his voice.

  “Those names belong to four dead alumni of this school. Riley makes number five.”

  “But I never even fucking heard of those people before!”

  “Calm down. Security detail says they’ve got physical evidence linking you to those deaths, they—”

  Cooley brushed past Sadie and punched the wall. White chunks of plaster went flying. He pulled his hand away and saw that his knuckles were bleeding. He sucked the blood off and stretched his fingers out.

  “Listen to me,” said Goldsmith, calmly flicking a stray plaster chip from his shoulder. “I’ve got a plan. But we’re running out of time. We’ve got to move now.”

  Cooley looked at Sadie. Goldsmith was waiting for her to burst out into tears at the first mention of dead people, but her eyes were dry. She just stared at Goldsmith, probably blaming everything on him. “I swear, I’m gonna get out of this,” Cooley told her. “Go back to progressions and I’ll—”

  “No,” Goldsmith cut in. “The plan, Cooley. We need to use her.”

  “Fuck you,” said Sadie.

  “No,” said Cooley. “Don’t get her involved.”

  Goldsmith looked at his watch, then back at Cooley. “I’m afraid it’s too late for that.”

  “I’m not taking orders from you,” she said.

  “It’s not me you’ll be helping. It’s him. You can save him.”

  “You’re a fucking android,” she said.

  Goldsmith looked at her and saw Camilla’s face. He blinked it away. He waited for his brain to formulate a suitable response. Sadie looked at Cooley. He shook his head and mouthed the words I’m sorry. It occurred to Goldsmith that silence was more appropriate. He walked over to Cooley’s bathroom and flipped on the faucet, starting to scrub the blood from his hands. After a few moments Cooley stood in the doorway and watched as those horrible burgundy flakes stuck to the white porcelain sink under a cleansing stream of soap and water.

  “What happened to you?” he asked.

  “The security detail was chasing me in San Angeles. Two cops got in the way. I … I neutralized them.”

  “You beat up two cops?” Cooley looked shocked and amused.

  “I’m not proud of it.”

  “But how? The med cycle’s not supposed to—”

  “I overrode the chemicals somehow.” Goldsmith dried his hands. “It was like I’d always seen a glimpse of light behind two huge black curtains that were too heavy to move.”

  “And?”

  “And today, I finally pulled the curtains down.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “For what?”<
br />
  “Sounds to me like you just graduated.” Sadie stood next to Cooley in the doorway.

  “Fine,” she said, looking at Goldsmith. “I’ll do it.”

  * * *

  Bunson reclined in the luxurious Aeron chair in Goldsmith’s private suite. It seemed miniature beneath his considerable weight. Cooley pulled over a chair from the work terminal and sat next to him.

  “This is insane,” whispered Bunson.

  “I don’t have any other choice.”

  “You can’t trust this guy. After the way he burned everyone yesterday and…”

  “I’m fucked, Bunson. Plain and simple.”

  “That’s the rumor.”

  “What are people saying?”

  “No specifics. Just chatter that mighty Cooley might get the boot before commencement.”

  Cooley let out a morbid chuckle. “If only.”

  “What really happened in San Angeles?”

  “I … I shouldn’t tell you. I’d be putting you at risk.”

  “No offense, man, but I’m already risking everything just by being in this room with you. Not to mention the crazy shit you say Goldsmith’s come up with. How do you know he’s not just setting us up? Or that he’ll back us up if we get busted?”

  Cooley thought of Goldsmith in the same room with him and Sadie just a few minutes ago, disheveled, more than a little scared, desperate. “I trust him,” Cooley said. “Like I said, I’ve got no other choice.”

  The door opened. Goldsmith walked in and pulled out a two-liter glass bottle of transparent liquid from a book bag. He set it on the table.

  “The hell is that?” asked Bunson.

  “Read the label,” Goldsmith said.

  Bunson looked at a white sticker on the bottle’s side. Black letters spelled out the words: METHAMPHETAMINE CONCENTRATE, 100% UNDISTILLED, BATCH #424, STANSBURY SCHOOL MED TECH BAY. “How’d you get that?” he asked.

  Goldsmith looked down at him, this Neanderthal about to snap the hinges off his fancy chair. “My reputation precedes me,” he replied. “The tower is like anywhere else in the world. Holding a position of power smoothes over many otherwise troublesome things.”

  Bunson got up from the chair and his head seemed to skim the ceiling. He looked down at Goldsmith and cracked his knuckles. Goldsmith returned his gaze, smirking at the playground routine. Cooley watched them from his own chair—a six-foot-five nerd and a six-foot-nine bully—and thought they could be two huge pro wrestlers in an alternate reality. To his own surprise, he silently wagered a bet on the nerd.

  “Hey, people are talking, and from what I hear, you’re not so powerful these days,” said Bunson. “What, Cooley? Smart guy here didn’t tell you the news? The hot rumor is he’s not valedictorian anymore. Golden boy quit.”

  Goldsmith glanced over at Cooley. His face was calm. He didn’t betray any shock or surprise. He was smarter than everyone thought, Goldsmith realized. Smart enough to know that this was a minor pissing contest, compared to getting Bunson to do what they wanted. “You’re right,” Goldsmith said. “But, due to unusual circumstances, the administration has asked for my help.”

  “And you decide to backstab them and help Cooley instead?” Bunson headed for the door. “Sorry, I don’t buy it. And even if I did, you don’t have the clout anymore to square things with the school if something goes wrong. Word is, Camilla 2.0’s running the show now and she’s—”

  Goldsmith followed him and grabbed him by the shoulder. Bunson whirled around and knocked his hand away like it was a mosquito.

  “Miss Moore is good. I’m better.”

  Bunson looked over at Cooley. “Man, even if I did help you guys out, you’ll never convince Sadie to go along with it.”

  “She already said she would,” said Cooley.

  “What?” Bunson’s face went a shade whiter, like this news was heavier than a just-retired valedictorian stealing enough pure meth from the med tech bay to keep the whole school up for weeks on end. “No way.” Cooley nodded in response. “Well, that’s bullshit,” Bunson muttered. “I just don’t know why she’d…”

  Goldsmith checked his watch. It was almost one P.M. “Are you in or out, Bunson?” Bunson didn’t even look at him. He grabbed the glass bottle of methamphetamine concentrate, slid it into his book bag, and made for the door.

  “Bunson,” Cooley said. He turned around and looked back at him. “Thanks.” The big guy nodded, a grimace on his face, and walked out.

  “You could’ve mentioned the valedictorian thing,” Cooley said.

  “It was a news update I figured you could do without.”

  “Were you serious when you told Bunson that you were better than Camilla?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you really believe that? That if she’s working against us you can beat her?” Goldsmith saw Selmer-Dubonnet flash past his eyes all over again. Cooley was scared of her—which just meant he was sane—and didn’t know if Goldsmith could pull off another upset. “Goldsmith?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “But she’s—”

  “August 29, 2035. The day of the Selmer-Dubonnet exam. We—me, Camilla, and eight other specimens—had been going for almost four hours. Candidates were being eliminated one by one with each progressive stage. There were only three of us left—me, Gregory Marcus Garvin, and Camilla—when they dropped us in a sensory deprivation tank filled with eight hundred gallons of cold water. They strapped immobilizing braces on our limbs and made us wear headsets that ran loops of hallucinogenic video feeds over and over again. Weird stuff. Jackals feeding on human carcasses, these incredibly detailed and graphic animated sequences of invasive surgery … sometimes I’d just see blue and yellow patterns coiling around each other like snakes in front of a sunburst. The water around me became a kind of soundtrack. I replaced my fear with anger at what they were putting us through. It was the only way I’d last; I needed that burn to sustain me. Garvin went into a seizure forty-eight minutes in. He couldn’t handle it. That left me and Camilla. The tank drained and the nurses came out to examine our vital signs. We both wanted to quit, that much I knew. I looked over at her. There was vomit—a morning’s worth of NutriTein bars that cost enough to feed a family of outsiders for days—drying in her hair. We made eye contact. She looked like a stranger to me, which is exactly how I wanted it. I made her anonymous. Just another obstacle in my path, something to be dispensed with in short order. Neither of us knew what was coming next. But we looked each other in the eyes and I knew I had her beat. She wanted to win. I fucking needed it.

  “They took us into another room for the final stage. On the way, I caught a glimpse of a recovery center that had been set up on the disciplinary level: the eight other specimens who didn’t make it to the end were sedated in hospital beds, machines monitored their recovery. I didn’t feel any pity for them. I’d already visualized that scene in my head for months before the exam day: my competitors for the title laid before me, broken. Camilla and I were strapped down in chairs. They attached electrodes to our temples and pressure points. There was a control panel built into the arm of the chair and a plasma screen on the wall. On the other end of the room was this huge mirror. I knew everyone was watching—Lang, Latimer, Gibson, probably some team of shrinks and medics to make sure Selmer-Dubonnet protocol was followed—and it fed my anger even more. A voice gave us instructions. The screen would broadcast a selection of questions. The peer reviewer would pick one, and if the reviewer’s opponent did not answer correctly, the reviewer would hit a switch on the chair’s panel, firing fifty thousand nonlethal volts into those electrodes. With each incorrect answer the opponent would continue to be electrocuted. Upon a correct response, the roles would switch. This would continue until one of us either gave up or was physically unable to continue.

  “I spoke up. Or at least I pretended to speak up. I said out loud that I wouldn’t agree to this, that I refused to be reduced to this behavior. I didn’t mean a goddamned word of it, Cooley. I w
as just saying it for everyone else’s benefit, so they’d think of me as a person with morals, someone who believed in the Stansbury Oath, someone with honor…” Goldsmith’s voice tightened as he tried to choke back tears. “I only protested because I wanted Camilla to be my friend when it was all over. I wanted her to believe that I cared more about her than winning the title. And I did care about her! But not so badly that I wasn’t prepared, right then and there, to do this awful thing. To rip her fucking heart out in that room and crush it under my heel. That’s how I was built. That’s what this place has made me, you see? They trained me to be the best. She looked up and gave me this slight smile. I smiled back and got on with the business of finishing her off.

  “I picked question twenty-three. She had five seconds to answer. ‘The day before yesterday is three days after Saturday. What day is today?’ She stuttered, uncertain. Any other day, any other place, Camilla 2.0 would’ve knocked that and every other question out of the park. But four hours of testing, the high-pressure stakes, and this fear jammed up that amazing brain of hers. She froze. She answered ‘Friday.’ I hit the button and watched the voltage turn her body into a contorted, frozen figure of pain jerking so hard against the polymer bindings on her arms that they tore chunks out of that beautiful, perfect skin of hers. I repeated the question. She answered ‘Wednesday.’ I paused, my finger over the trigger, and made my face look hesitant, unsure. I glanced over at the mirror, like I couldn’t go through with this anymore, like if I did, it wasn’t my fault, but the fault of those hiding behind the glass. A look of hope passed across her face for a split second and I hit that switch again. It was the first time all day I’d heard her scream. I repeated the question: ‘The day before yesterday is three days after Saturday. What day is today?’ And then I leaned in and whispered to her.

  “‘I won’t do it,’ I said.

  “‘You have to do it,’ she replied.

  “‘No, I won’t.’

  “‘Yes, you will,’ she said. ‘I would. And I will, if you don’t do it first.’

  “‘The answer is Thursday,’ I whispered.