by Ryan Schow
“Forget justifying your faith to me, or God, or your beliefs,” he said to the kids with their hands in the air. “That is not what this class is about.” He motioned for them to put their hands down, and they did. “We’re going to debate not the history of religion, but its effect in control.”
Abby was coming around. Finally some teaching that made sense!
Discretely, she glanced around the room; everyone seemed to be paying attention. Not passing notes or throwing spitballs, or ogling the hot guys or the hot girls. She had never seen such levels of obedience and it was seriously strange, but in a good way. Is this how everyone feels when they first come to Astor Academy? she wondered. This must be how the ultra elite learn, she reasoned.
“The second pillar of power is the educational institutions. Places like public schooling, private school and college, they tell you what to think, how to think, they basically indoctrinate you as to the ways those secretly in control want you to think.”
A hand went up and he said, “Yes, that includes Astor Academy, too.”
The hand went down.
“There is no place where the young, influential mind is more open than in school. Your teachers, they tell you what to think, how to think. In many ways they make you the slaves you will become later in life. Not all of us will tell you this truth, but I will.”
“How can you condemn learning facilities when society needs them to remain civilized, to grow, to thrive?” a girl asked. She didn’t even bother raising her hand. She just blurted out the question because every time hands went up, Professor Zanetti motioned them back down.
“Good question, Julie. That’s the basis for the idea of education. You don’t know, so I teach you. The school decides the curriculum for you. We put it in your head, make you know it and test you on it later. Therefore what we teach and say is accepted as absolute truth. As in you don’t question it and it becomes the framework by which you organize and live your life.
“The third pillar of power is the financial institutions. The ruling elite—basically your parents, their associates, those running the government, industry and society—they use money, power and the theatre of economics to keep the unwashed masses underfoot.
“The fourth pillar of power is the global elites. The separation of classes is now greater than ever. The big myth is that the middle class have the most power, when if you saw how they were all but crushed by the housing crisis, the devaluation of the dollar, debt, gas prices, wars, etc…you’ll realize those truly in charge are the unseen few occupying the highest positions of power.
“The fifth pillar of power is the military industrial complex. The demise of privacy via constant surveillance by agencies like the NSA, the FBI and the CIA, it’s unconstitutional. It’s borderline treason. Yet the internet, your cell phones, your home phone, even your refrigerators, they’re always recording audio and video of what you’re doing in the privacy of your home, and it’s all done under the guise of keeping you safe. If you haven’t heard of our threat fusion centers, trust me, it’s eye opening.”
About that time, everyone had fallen so silent you could have heard a gnat shiver. Abby just sat there, dumfounded, yet secretly electrified. She couldn’t help wondering, was she finally going to get a true measure of the world? All the lies they told you everywhere else, she thought, could it be they’re not telling them here?
“Pillar six is the press,” Professor Zanetti continued, almost without a breath in between. “To control a nation, rather to enslave a nation, the you must control the flow of information, then disarm them, then use manufactured crisis’s to steer public opinion and support. The press provide the perfect vehicle for that, which is why the elite are frothing at the mouth to control the internet. Right now it’s free. It’s largely unregulated and uncontrollable. But it cannot be or the elite won’t be able to control what you see and hear.
“The final pillar of power is the intelligence groups—or the alphabet agencies. The NSA, the CIA, the FBI, the TSA. How they control you, how they spy on you, how information about you and everything you do, say, read and write is now captured and stored in million square foot digital storage facilities, it’s not for safety—it’s for measures of control, if ever control over you becomes necessary. We’re talking about your deepest secrets, your unforgiveable sins, all those nude photos you sent your boyfriend or girlfriend when you thought no one was watching.”
A couple of people snickered, but mostly girls.
“Do this,” he said. “Everyone get out your smart phones and tablets. Hold them up.”
Mesmerized, everyone did. Including Abby.
“All of them have two way microphones and video cameras in them that can turn on and shut off without your permission or knowledge. The best thing NSA and the CIA did was invest in first the tech companies, then the social media platforms. They used to have the hardest time figuring out what you think and say, how you feel. Now, at the touch of a button, these agencies are able to profile you based on everything they’ve collected on you since…well, forever, thanks to sites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SocioSphere, etcetera, etcetera. Oh, and all those apps that tell you they’re using your camera and microphone and you just let them? Might as well open your front door and leave it wide open. Forever.”
“That’s the price of freedom, though,” one of the girls argued.
From the back of the room, Brayden said, “You’re stupid if you think that’s freedom.”
Abby agreed. A lot of people agreed.
Second period was Corporate Networking with a man named Wendell Pierce, who was thirtysomething and scholarly looking, but not in a nerdy way. The premise of the class was that without corporate networking skills, you’re doomed to live in the middle rungs of whatever kind of occupation you choose to make your career in. You have to know people. And if you don’t know people, you have to know how to know people.
Abby gave that idea its due consideration. She didn’t know anyone in her new life, and it made her constantly uncomfortable. She had to know people. Then again, a part of that was that she was a fraud, and everyone around her knew more about her than she did.
Third period was Business Start Up. Professor Jayne (of the Just Jayne line of cosmetics) was a woman with gorgeous skin and a no-bullshit look about her. Like she was someone. Not merely a professor. Someone important. One of the girls asked why she was teaching when she was so obviously successful and she replied, “I did what I did for money and security, and then I slaved away for market positioning. Now I do whatever I want, and what I want most in life is to teach a semester at the illustrious Astor Academy. So here I am.”
Everyone sort of smiled and that’s when the hard exterior of the woman cracked and she showed off the most enchanting smile.
“So why start your own business?” she asked the class.
There were a few answers here and there, answers that didn’t move or impress her and that’s when Abby raised her hand and caught Professor Jayne’s eye.
“Impress me Ms.—”
“Swann. Abby Swann.”
“Go,” she said.
“It’s how you can not have to work a lame job and have shitty people tell you what to do. Running your own business is freedom from oppression at work. It’s also your choice to be the shitty person other people have to work for.”
People were snickering all around her, and Just Jayne’s eyes widened just a touch with amusement. That’s when Abby realized how silly and vulgar her answer sounded.
“All of you giggle,” Just Jayne said, “but she’s exactly right.”
I am? she thought.
I am!
“For any of you who’ve had horrible jobs in the past, and I suspect very few of you have even had a job, working for ‘shitty’ employers is the most miserable thing in the world. Being boss is best. That’s one motivation behind being an entrepreneur—looking to build and grow a business you run. We’re going to take this semester and dissec
t the business start up model in several different fields, and then we’re going to delve into what it takes to drive your business into the financial stratosphere.”
After third period, it was lunch, and Abby was like, thank God!, because her brain was feeling like finger-squished Play-Doh. That said, she thought Astor Academy was the coolest school on the planet. She was definitely going to see Dr. Holland and thank him, and after that she was going to call Christian and thank him, too.
7
The totally fresh, unbelievably naïve Abby Swann sauntered into the posh cafeteria of hardwood floors and gorgeous plank tables and went straight for the food line. The meaty aroma of cooked steak hung heavy in the air. She was like, OMG! Her salivary glands went into overdrive. The anxiousness of devouring a lunch like that set in hard. Waiting in line behind a couple of chatty boys, she tried to see around them, to steal a peek at the buffet ahead. She saw mashed potatoes. And steamed carrots. Broccoli and chicken and—there it was—steak. Big pieces of it.
Holy balls, she thought.
After loading up on meat and veggies, and setting it on the cleanest, nicest looking lunch tray ever, she turned to look for Damien but instead nearly ran into a tight pack of girls. Smiling, she said, “Wow, sorry, we were almost wearing my lunch.”
The triangle of girls just stood there, the nearest to her wearing an ugly sneer on her face. Abby felt heat rise to the back of her neck and her underarms. WTH? Am I about to get into a fight?
“I’m Abby Swann,” she said, trying to smile her way through a mountain of insecurity.
“No shit,” the girl said. Her already ugly expression turned nasty. Like nasty nasty. All the sudden, the in-your-face details of the girl became very clear: burgundy red hair cut short and styled flat and in pieces against her head, like something out of Paris Fashion Week. She had big eyes that were either bluish-green or greenish-blue (depending on the light), lips so plumped and blood red she could be a vampire in a vampire sex novel. She batted her eyes at Abby, but Abby couldn’t do anything but stare at eyelashes long enough and black enough to have real weight to them. And her skin? Her skin was flawless. At least it looked that way thanks to what was most likely a very expensive liquid based foundation, one that had her complexion looking the tiniest bit wan, which was smart and complimentary to her hair, eyes and lips.
“I had an accident,” she heard herself say.
“Did you piss yourself?” the girl said, snide, like she had nothing but undiluted hatred on her mind. What the hell did the original Abby do to this girl? Her panicked mind was officially scrambling.
Behind the red haired nightmare was another attractive girl (Jesus Almighty!—there was an endless supply of them!) with shoulder length blonde hair, fair features and an attractive face that was also soured by its expression. She looked like a cast member of the latest Beverly Hills 90210 (as opposed to the show her mother grew up watching) and just as snotty as the first bitch. There was a third girl with lots of brown hair and soft southern features. She had her face glued to her phone while at the same time balancing her food tray in one hand. She glanced up and her face was gorgeous in a starved model sort of way, even though she didn’t look starved. The big haired brunette was the most stunning of the three, and also oblivious to…whatever the hell this was going on.
“I don’t know what I did to you, but—”
“You what?” the Paris Fashion Week bitch stammered. “Holy Jesus, you really did have an accident. Let me show you.” And with that, the nightmare with the short red hair horked up a glob of saliva and spit it on Abby’s once-savory looking lunch. Boils of bubbly white goo roped her broccoli stems and mashed potatoes, and even more splattered across her steak.
Abby’s mouth flopped open. WTF?! Seriously, WTF???
The girl who spit in her food flipped her chin up and breezed off, leaving Abby with her ruined lunch, appalled. She was still reeling when the 90210 blonde slapped the edge of her tray. It crashed onto the hardwood floor with a mighty racket, the porcelain plate breaking in half, her food going everywhere.
The ambient noise inside the cafeteria fell fast to a whisper.
“Dropped something,” the blonde snatch declared almost whimsically over her shoulder. That’s when she recognized the blonde. She was Cameron freaking O’Dell, country music star sensation Patrick O’Dell’s daughter.
She was bending down when the third girl, the big haired brunette looking at her phone, walked around her like it was no biggie. Like she was dumped over trash you veered around on the street rather than a girl. Abby flashed hard. The trailer park parts of her were so humiliated, and so irate, Abby/Janice scooped up a handful of mashed potatoes and hurled them at the back of Cameron’s head. The pile hit the short haired diva on the neck instead.
She gasped, spun around and said, “You stupid twat!”
“You first, fire crotch!” Abby spat. She stood her ground, shaking, infuriated, her potato launching hand made into a fist that would crush that little whore’s face the second she got close enough. Instead, Cameron gripped her own tray with both hands and launched the entire mess at Abby. Abby turned her head just in time to avoid the tray, but the porcelain plate struck her hard above her eye, the flying food soiling the better part of the right side of her body.
Quick bursts of laughter and mutterings of disbelief erupted in the cafeteria, then it went completely silent. Like everyone was holding their breath for what was next.
Her eye hurt so bad, Abby wanted to cry.
Instead of cowering, she looked up and faced Cameron and the red haired skank. The big haired brunette barely even looked up. Abby fought the urge to touch her eye, and that’s when a gusher of blood came draining down her face. The red head and the blonde, their eyes got wide, but no one moved.
That’s when she saw the TV star. The girl everyone knew from the CW show. Sindee. A.k.a. Sabrina Baldridge.
Abby was like, she goes to school here, too?! If Abby wasn’t standing there, bleeding all over the place, with food on her shirt and pants, she would have introduced herself.
“Looks like someone’s face is on its period,” Sabrina said loud enough for everyone to hear. That’s when the ruckus of laughter started back up. Seconds later, one of the lunchroom ladies from the kitchen came scrambling out to intervene.
“It’s already over,” the red head with mashed potatoes on her neck said to the woman. “She tried to start a food fight, which is stupid considering that’s already been done.”
The woman looked at Abby’s bleeding face and hurried to her, pulling out a damp white towel with some food stains on it. She put it to Abby’s face and turned to the girls.
“You three to the Headmistress’s office, NOW!”
The brunette with the big hair, she said, “I was texting. I had nothing to do with it.”
She looked at Abby and said, “I find that hard to believe.”
“It’s true,” Abby heard herself say.
“Julie you’re fine to go then. Theresa and Cameron, go. Right now.” Looking at Abby, she said, “Sweetheart, are you okay?”
“I think I need stitches.”
“No,” the cafeteria worker said. She smelled like steak, which made Abby sad because now she wouldn’t be eating, and goddamn if she wasn’t completely famished. “I think you’ll heal up just fine.”
That said, she peeled back the dish towel and it was soaked red, the wound still leaking.
“My goodness,” the woman gasped. “It’s still open. We need to get you to the doctor’s office. He’ll stitch you up.”
“I got it,” Abby said, taking the towel from the woman. “I’ll wash this and return it.”
“The Headmistress will want to see you, too,” the woman said. “When you’re done.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t know what it is with you girls these days,” she said with a sigh. “It was never like this when I was growing up.”
“Has it…been like this…before? With me an
d them, I mean?”
She gave an anxious laugh and said, “Are you kidding?”
“No.”
“Just go to Dr. Holland’s and get that taken care of,” she said, spinning Abby toward the exit and giving her a tap to get going.
On the way to Dr. Holland’s office, no one said anything to her. They all stared at her with lunch on her clothes and a blood soaked towel pressed to her face, but no one said a word.
In the office, there was an attractive girl with just above shoulder length black hair cut in a slight A-line bob and heavy make up done the right way. She had a sumptuous Goth look and eyes so purple and rich they seemed bottomless.
She thought, are those real?!—they can’t be.
“Look at you,” the girl uttered. “First day and already someone’s broken your crayons.” Abby didn’t know what to say to all these people who seemed to know her. The girl with the raven-colored hair said, “Let me guess, Julie Sanderson?”
“Cameron O’Dell, and some asshole with short red hair.”
The girl stood up, came around the reception desk, peeled back the stained white cloth and said, “That would be Theresa Pritchard, the oldest of three daughters to Goldman Sachs executive Jamison Prichard. She’s a real piece of work, that one, but not as bad as Cameron. What happened?”
Abby told her the full story and the girl just nodded her head, like she knew. Abby was fast learning these girls were the school’s mean girls.
“I’m Raven, by the way.”
“How fitting,” she said, giving a nod to the girl’s black hair. “I suppose you know I’m Abby Swann.”
“I know.”
Abby was looking at Raven thinking about how perfect she was. It was disgusting how perfect everyone was. Were they fake like her? A race of genetic, scientific frauds? Her mind was a twisted, wondering thing. Were they all born ugly, only to be turned pretty?