Scored

by Lauren McLaughlin

  “Direct address?” Martin asked.

  “That’s when people speak directly to the cameras,” she said.

  “Of course,” Martin said. “That’s one of the aspects of the score that makes people—especially people of our generation—very uncomfortable.”

  “Yes, I know,” Sherry said. “It makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Luckily, we found a juvenile detention facility in New Hampshire that wasn’t uncomfortable with it.”

  “At all,” Nathan interjected.

  “Exborough,” Martin said, nodding.

  Sherry and Nathan looked at each other for a grim moment, until Martin prodded them. “Things didn’t exactly go as planned at Exborough,” he said. “Did they?”

  “There were some bumps along the way,” Nathan offered.

  “Bumps?” Martin waited for them to expand, but they did not. “The records from Exborough are all sealed,” he said finally. “Along with your research notes.”

  “Our subjects were minors,” Sherry explained gently. “They have certain legal protections.”

  “They’re not minors anymore,” Martin pushed. “What can you tell us?”

  In the silence that followed, the camera zoomed in, first on Nathan, who remained impassive, then on Sherry, whose jaw tensed.

  This seemed to stiffen Martin’s resolve. “Why won’t you tell us what happened at Exborough?”

  Nathan turned to Sherry, and it seemed to Imani that something transpired between them, an agreement of some kind.

  “Look,” Sherry said. “You have to remember, these were troubled kids. Long before we came along, there was drug use, violence, theft. There was organized crime and prostitution. At the facility. The authorities were at their wits’ end. So were the parents, in most cases. I think that’s how they justified it.”

  “Is that how you justified it?” Martin asked.

  “We were invited,” Nathan said.

  “You were invited to put those kids under twenty-four-hour surveillance?” Martin challenged.

  Sherry smiled patiently. “They were already under surveillance,” she said.

  “Look,” Nathan continued, “we were just looking for a way to feed massive amounts of data into our software. Exborough was perfectly set up already for that purpose. We were going to toss all the data afterward.”

  “It was the kids themselves who changed our minds,” Sherry said. “I remember the day the warden called to tell us they were confessing to the cameras.” She turned to her husband, laughing. “Do you remember that?”

  Nathan nodded.

  “Confessing?” Martin asked, incredulous.

  Sherry nodded. “It was so strange. We never anticipated it. We hoped the kids would get used to the cameras and maybe ignore them after a while. But something else happened. The kids loved the cameras; they loved being watched! I remember thinking it was probably because it was a kind of micro-celebrity. You know, like the old reality TV.”

  Martin wrinkled his nose in distaste.

  “That was my reaction too,” Sherry said. “But you have to remember, these kids were already used to being watched.”

  “All kids are,” Nathan said. “That’s the salient point here. That was our lightbulb moment.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Martin asked.

  “Even before the score,” Nathan said. “Before Exborough, before the first closed-circuit camera was installed in the first convenience store, being a kid has always been about being watched. They’re watched by their parents, by their teachers, by each other. Look at a baby. All it wants is to be watched. It cries when you look away. Look at little kids on the playground: ‘Mommy, Mommy, look at me.’ ”

  “But the older we get,” Sherry continued, “the less we look at each other. Watch commuters on a train. Nobody makes eye contact. The checkout girl at the supermarket? Do you ever look her in the eye?”

  Martin laughed in a self-deprecating manner.

  “And, on a macro scale, look at what’s happened to our communities,” Nathan said. “We used to live in small clusters, in tiny villages. Do you think there was any privacy there? There were no fenced-off backyards. There were no locks on the doors. Everyone knew everyone else’s business.”

  “Right,” Sherry said. “For thousands of years, that’s how we lived. That’s our natural heritage. Our human nature, if you will.”

  “But as communities grew in size,” Nathan said, “so did the fetishization of privacy.”

  “The fetishization of privacy,” Martin said, clearly disturbed by the phrase.

  “Privacy is a modern invention,” Nathan said. “There’s no hardwired need for it. If anything, the opposite is true.”

  “Yes,” Sherry continued, “and, interestingly, this cultural evolution toward privacy is precisely mirrored on an individual scale. The baby who craves attention becomes the adult who doesn’t know her own neighbors. The child who begged his mommy to look at him on the playground becomes the sullen teenager who locks his bedroom door and puts up a KEEP OUT sign. Where does he learn this?” She paused to let the question hang, before answering: “From his parents.”

  “And from society,” Nathan added.

  “But the kids at Exborough were different,” Sherry said with a warm smile, leaning in toward Martin. “They were alienated from their parents and from society. Not to mention, because of where they were, privacy was already dead for them.” She leaned farther forward, as if to share a secret. “We had no way of knowing this beforehand, but these kids were primed for this experiment. The cameras tapped into something primal for them. I think it reawakened something.”

  “What do you think it awakened?” Martin asked.

  Sherry stared into the camera for a long moment, then said: “Faith.”

  “Faith in what?”

  “Fair play,” Sherry said.

  Martin cocked his head to the side, awaiting clarification.

  “They knew they were being judged,” she explained. “I mean, to be honest, we didn’t know if the software would work in the beginning. But the kids knew their behavior was being evaluated somehow. It didn’t bother them. They were used to being judged. Only now, instead of being judged by a frustrated teacher, or a potentially abusive guard, or by a disapproving parent, they were being judged by something rational, something fair. Something not human.”

  “Exactly,” Nathan said with great satisfaction.

  “And they liked this?” Martin asked. “The nonhuman aspect?” Martin’s tone was pinched, as if he found the concept profoundly offensive.

  “Humans had failed these kids time and time again,” Sherry said. “I think for a lot of them, this was the first time they’d ever been judged fairly.”

  “By a software program.” Martin’s face again betrayed his discomfort with the idea.

  “By the most intelligent software program ever created,” Nathan said.

  Sherry gave her husband a sidelong glance.

  But Nathan was uncowed. “Hey, you can’t argue with the results. On every measurable parameter—income, health, marital stability, educational level, quality of life—the score’s predictive capacity is off the charts.”

  Sherry grew quiet in the face of her husband’s grandstanding.

  “A more perfect humanity through technology,” Martin said, quoting Score Corp’s well-known slogan.

  “That’s right,” Nathan said. “Where sociology, criminology, psychology, and, to be quite frank, all of the humanities have failed, the score has finally succeeded.”

  “But is that a worthy goal?” Martin asked.

  “What?” Nathan said. “Perfection?”

  “Exactly,” Martin said. “To a lot of people, that sounds frighteningly utopian.”

  Nathan leaned forward threateningly. “What are you afraid of, Martin?”

  Taken aback by the direct confrontation, Martin shook his head and jowls in the exaggerated manner that Imani recognized from more recent news feeds. “I’m not afraid of
anything,” he backtracked. “But I think a lot of people—”

  “A lot of people were perfectly happy to subject their children to the SATs and to all manner of standardized tests,” Nathan interrupted. “Let’s look at the SAT. All it had to do was predict an incoming college freshman’s academic performance. Do you want to know how accurate those predictions really were? Seventeen percent. Seventeen percent! That means four out of five times, it was completely wrong. Yet colleges relied on it, and billions were spent keeping this unequivocal failure of a social experiment not merely alive but central to the lives of young people. Why? Because it had the illusion of neutrality, and of science.” He took a breather and looked at his wife.

  “Yeah, but Nathan,” Sherry said, “the real reason it was kept alive is even worse.”

  “What’s that?” Martin asked, his thick eyebrows furrowing.

  “Because the SAT was easily gamed,” Sherry said. “If you could afford one of those test-prep courses, you could just buy yourself a higher score. The SAT was a way for rich people to pretend their children were gifted, when, in fact, they were just privileged.”

  “Exactly,” Nathan said.

  “And how is the score different?” Martin asked.

  “You can’t game it,” Sherry said.

  “Why?” Martin asked.

  “The software learns from the attempt,” she said. “It’s just more feedback to make it smarter.”

  “How smart?” Martin asked.

  “Smarter than us,” Nathan said, grinning. “And we’re pretty smart.”

  Sherry gave Nathan another sidelong glare, then looked back at Martin. “The thing to remember about the score is that, at its heart, it’s not so much about what you do. It’s about who you are.”

  “And there’s no test-prep course for that,” Nathan said.

  “No,” Sherry added. “Just the hard work of honest self-improvement.”

  “Is that what people are afraid of?” Nathan asked smugly.

  Imani had headphones on, so she missed the bell when it rang. It was only the parade of students exiting the library that pulled her attention from the screen. With reluctance, she closed the window, and walked out of the library with Nathan Klein’s last words resonating in her mind: Is that what people are afraid of?

  Imani sat through English class, taking cursory notes, but her thoughts remained with the Potter-Kleins. There wasn’t much for her to use from that interview, but it was a potential treasure trove for Diego.

  Imani had never given much thought to the Potter-Kleins before. If asked, she would have said they were a couple of computer geeks. But now she saw that they were so much more: they were visionaries. And what was wrong with having a utopian vision for humanity? Only a cynic would criticize them for it. If technology could help the human race get closer to perfection, where was the harm in it? Were human beings so admirable in their natural state?

  Imani replayed her favorite moment in her mind, when Nathan got all serious and said: “What are you afraid of, Martin?” It was a perfect line to use on Diego.

  After English class, she found another note from him in her locker.

  Meet me in the alley behind the ice rink on Saturday at noon. I want to show you Chauncey Beach my way. I’ll take care of the subterfuge.

  D. Landis, Thesaurus Needer

  Imani pocketed the note, thrilled at the opportunity to fire that winning line at him.

  13. twit

  ON SATURDAY AFTERNOON, when Imani emerged from the ice rink into the back alley, Diego was already there. He leaned against his scooter reading a paperback called Conquer the Five Elements in Five Easy Steps.

  “Those books are a waste of time,” Imani said.

  Diego shook his head as he flipped through the pages. “I don’t know. According to this, you’d have to go out of your way not to be a high ninety.” He snapped the book shut. “Take off your coat and shoes.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Diego opened the trunk of his scooter and pulled out a long black coat and some black lace-up boots. He handed them to Imani, who examined them with disdain.

  “They’re my mother’s,” he said.

  “Is your mother a vampire?”

  “According to some.” Diego reached back into the trunk, then handed her a shiny black helmet. “With these on,” he said, “you could be anyone. Even a filthy unscored like me.”

  Imani considered telling Diego that she’d already confessed their collaboration to the software so there was no need for the disguise. But she decided against it. If he thought she was taking a terrible risk to be with him, perhaps he’d be more likely to reveal sensitive information. She put on his mother’s coat and boots, then slid into the helmet.

  Diego straddled his scooter and waited for her to climb on behind him, but Imani hesitated.

  “I’m a safe driver,” he said. “I’ve only crashed once. But it was the other guy’s fault.”

  It wasn’t the scooter Imani was afraid of. She’d spent the past two years on the back of Cady’s, which was like being tethered to a gale force wind. It was the memory of Malachi Beene that frightened her. It was because of him that she’d sworn off all physical contact with boys. And now here was Diego, his long legs hugging the scooter, his straight back waiting for her to press herself against it. There was nothing inherently sexual about riding behind someone on a scooter, but she wished Diego had a car, something with a wide front seat, seat belts, and a lot of room between passenger and driver.

  Imani took a moment to remind herself why she was there, why it was worth the risk. Then she approached the scooter and climbed on behind Diego. There was no rear bar to hang on to, just the rounded trunk, which she clung to awkwardly.

  “You all right back there?” Diego asked.

  “Just go,” she said.

  Diego started down the alley. Imani scooted as far back as possible, leaving a gap between them wide enough for a third rider.

  Diego was a much safer driver than Cady, who tended to treat all other vehicles as competitors or obstacles. They turned from the Causeway into the hinterlands of Somerton, past St. James College and the nature preserve. Dozens of eyeballs ticked by overhead, but with the long black coat and obliterating helmet, Imani was invisible to them, a thought that made her stomach flutter with both excitement and guilt.

  The road to Chauncey Beach was mostly empty, curving gracefully beneath the canopy of budding trees. It was a five-mile ride to the end, and the parking lot was closed for the off-season, as marked by a handwritten sign bolted to a swing gate. Diego swerved easily around it, then headed toward the shuttered hamburger stand. Stuck like lollipops throughout the parking lot were a handful of light poles with eyeballs dangling from them.

  “Hold on!” he shouted.

  In imitation of Imani’s expert beaching of Frankenwhaler a few days earlier, he sped up and juddered his scooter over the lip of the boardwalk. Swaying roughly, Imani had no choice but to squeeze his hips with her knees. As the wooden planks jolted them upward, she refused to hold on to his waist, suspecting that such an indignity was precisely his intention. Diego paused briefly at the top to tease her with a glimpse of the broad beach and glistening Atlantic, then he turned right and rode into the dunes.

  Imani rarely ventured into the dunes herself. She preferred the waterline. She knew there were no eyeballs beyond a certain point, which meant lowbies went to the dunes to conduct themselves in the manner of lowbies. She wasn’t sure what Diego did there, and the prospect of learning this made her stomach flutter even more.

  They descended into some trees, then followed the boardwalk over a network of streams. The interior of the dunes was surprisingly lush. Vines, bushes, and even some noisy insects fleshed out the parched surroundings into an unlikely Eden. They rode alone and unwatched through the shady network until a rise in the boardwalk brought them out of the trees and back to the bright white of the dunes. The ocean could be neither seen nor heard. After another ten minutes
, the boardwalk ended abruptly. There, about fifteen scooters and a handful of bikes lay haphazardly in the sand as if spit up by the boardwalk itself.

  Leaving his scooter among the others, Diego followed a riot of footprints up the side of a high dune. “Come on,” he said. “We have to climb.”

  Imani followed him to the top, where he looked downward.

  “Behold,” he said. “The pit.”

  Down below, it was, indeed, a pit. About twenty yards by fifty yards and perimetered by high dunes, it had been carved by the wind. At the bottom, about twenty kids milled about, some drinking beer, some tending to a small fire in the center.

  Diego grabbed Imani’s hand while starting down the steep side. Imani pulled roughly away from him. He stopped his descent and faced her.

  “Sorry,” he said. “It’s just that it’s steep.”

  “I’m okay,” she said. She dug her heels into the soft sand and descended the steep side on her own. Before long, the steepness forced her to run, then jump. Diego followed behind her at a respectable distance. Once at the bottom, she looked around at all of the unfamiliar faces. Diego walked up behind her.

  “Are they all unscored?” she whispered.

  Diego nodded.

  She didn’t recognize any of them from Somerton High. “How do you know them?” she asked.

  “A software program forces us to be friends,” he said.

  “Ha-ha,” she said flatly.

  “Actually, most of them are from my old school.” He waved to a cluster of girls sitting on a felled tree, roasting marsh-mallows in the fire. One of them, a tall girl with dark hair pulled into a tight ponytail, came over to greet them.

  “Hey, Diego,” she said. “Who’s your friend?” Without waiting for an answer, she extended her hand to Imani with a dazzling smile that reminded her of Ms. Wheeler. “I’m Erica.”

  Imani had spent most of her life avoiding the unscored. When she hesitated, the girl dropped her hand and let her eyes wander down Imani’s strange outfit.

  “It’s a disguise,” Diego said. “She doesn’t usually dress like that.”