by Amy Joy
“So, let me see if I get this straight,” Robert said at breakfast the next morning. “Your brother’s disappeared, and you think none of this is real?”
“Okay, I know it sounds crazy, but maybe it’s not so far-fetched?”
“Yeah, but come on,” Cayden replied. “Not all this. There’s no way.”
“Why not?” I said, pushing my food aside. “How do you know what’s real?”
Stevie fussed with her tray and silverware. “It feels real.” Her voice was tentative.
“It tastes real,” Ruby said, scooping up a bite of cereal.
“Okay, fine. Taste. We all know taste can be simulated.”
“Oh, not this,” Cayden said, poking his bacon and eggs.
I looked to Robert. “You know it’s true. We eat fake stuff every day. We were raised on it.” I paused, searching for an example. What did Bryan mention that time he tried to explain stuff about our food to me? “Pizza flavored potato chips!” I said. “How do you explain the pizza flavored potato chip?”
“They’re delicious,” Cayden said. He laughed, and Stevie giggled.
“Fine, but they aren’t pizza. There are no pizza ingredients in them at all. And yet, when you bite into one: pizza flavor.”
“So what’s your point?” Tina asked.
“It’s all imitation. Using a variety of chemicals, our bodies have been tricked into thinking that we are experiencing pizza. But we aren’t.”
Robert laid his hands on the table and looked at me intently. “So people can simulate pizza. Allie, this is a whole world we are talking about.”
“Thank you!” Tina said, throwing her hands up. “That’s what I’m saying. There ain’t no way.”
I shook my head. “You have to think beyond what you know. It’s nothing we’ve experienced before. But that doesn’t make it impossible.”
“Well, what about smell?” Stevie asked.
“They’ve been doing that for years,” Robert conceded.
“It’s true. Think of all the scented air fresheners out there,” Ruby said. “One time, when I was kid, I came home from school and the house was full of the smell of gingerbread cookies. My mind was filled with warm images. I imagined my mother called off work, in the kitchen baking all day, stacks of cookies mounded around her and more ready to come out of the oven. I was so excited, I ran to the kitchen.
“When I got there, all I found was a scented candle lit on the stove. Later, I found mom later in her office, working as always. I’d never been so disappointed.”
We sat quiet for a moment, out of respect for what Ruby had shared. We’d all had similar moments—not necessarily involving a lighted candle, but moments where we thought our parents might be present for us for just a moment—a different kind of moment than the hellos from the office or the goodnight’s in the evening could provide.
Stevie finally broke the silence. “What about feeling? You know, touch?”
Robert shook his head. “You stick enough sensors on a person, they can experience just about anything.”
“Oh man…” Tina said. She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t even want to think about it.”
“What?” Stevie asked.
Tina and Robert exchanged looks.
“Oh no, I don’t want to know,” I said, catching on.
“Nothing,” Tina told Stevie.
“Oh no!” she exclaimed. “You didn’t?”
Tina shrugged. Robert looked the other way.
We all knew they had a thing for each other, but they never showed any sign of having acted on it.
“Okay, so we know they can simulate what we see and hear too,” Tina said, changing the subject. “But just because they can doesn’t mean that they are. I’m not ready to believe it. I got too much riding on this.
“For some of you,” she said, looking from me, to Cayden, to Robert, to Ruby, “it don’t make any difference if you’re here or not. You have options, opportunities.
“But for some of us,” she looked at Stevie, “it’s better here on the inside.”
We sat in silence. She was right. As much as I wanted to hate The Academie—to just declare it evil and work to bring about its downfall—I couldn’t. Just like the Tai Chi symbol Shara had taught me about, The Academie wasn’t all good or all bad. It was both, held in perfect balance. Could I destroy that? Could I destroy the one chance some of us had to get an education and make things better for themselves?
It was Stevie’s voice that broke the silence again. “But if it’s not real….I don’t want it.”
Her face was so sad when she wasn’t smiling.
Tina’s eyes welled up with tears. “Well then,” she said. She stood, gathered her things, turned, and walked away.
“Should we go after her?” I asked Robert.
He shook his head. “Let her go. She needs time to sort it out.”
We sat there a moment, before I spoke again. “So, are you guys, like a couple now?” I hoped to lighten the mood.
“I don’t know.” He looked down and shook his head again. “She’s a complicated woman.”
Tina and Robert were another reason I couldn’t hate The Academie. Not only would I not have met either of them, but they never would have gotten together otherwise. The Academie brought us each of us together and set us on equal ground.
Life was so much easier when things were black or white. These shades of gray made life way too complicated.
41. when teachers attack
“There’s a flaw in your logic,” Tina said as she set her tray down at lunch. “If anything can be simulated, then how can we ever know what’s real?”
I didn’t answer, and she continued.
“You’re so convinced this is not the real world, but how can you prove it? How could you ever prove that anywhere or anything is real?”
I sat there, speechless. She was right.
“Besides, how’d they get us into this ‘non-world’ without us noticing?” Tina added.
All eyes turned to me, but it was Ruby who spoke first. “They sent us to the medical ward when we came in here,” she said.
The group’s gaze shifted to Ruby. “I got a shot. Did you?” she asked.
One by one, we nodded.
The realization suddenly dawned on me. “When my parents visited, the sergeant that pulled me out of class didn’t take me right to them. He took me to the medical ward—and they came up with an excuse for me to get a shot again—before and after.”
“Me too,” Ruby said. “When my mom brought Charlotte.”
Robert looked surprised. “They gave you a shot? Of what?”
“Vitamin B,” Ruby and I answered in unison.
The rest stared back at us blankly. Then their eyes became wide. Too wide.
“What?” I said, suddenly freaked.
Then it happened. In unison, their bodies lifted up slightly and then collapsed onto the tabletop.
The noise reverberated around the room. The sound of a hundred bodies suddenly dropping where they were.
Ruby gasped and stood up suddenly.
I got up and scanned the room.
Only Ruby and I remained upright.
The room went dark.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Someone was coming.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
The footsteps echoed through the otherwise silent room.
Tap.
I spun to see who it was.
Tap.
I couldn’t make out anything in the darkness.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
“Well, Miss Thompson, you’re quite the trouble maker.”
The voice came from behind me, but I’d recognize that screeching anywhere.
Sergeant Murk.
I turned to see only a silhouette in the darkness, but it was her.
“What did you do?” I demanded.
&n
bsp; I wanted to reach over—to check on our friends—but I was afraid to move.
“What did I do? T-t-t-t.” Her tongue clicked as it knocked against her teeth. “The question is, what did you do?” Her eyes bugged out from her over-pulled hair.
I stiffened.
“Things were going so nicely here. Classes were going well, students were behaving themselves, performance was up. Young people were receiving a quality education.” She looked at Tina. “Never before was this possible.” My dislike for her was increasing. “But you had to go and spoil it.”
“What’s wrong with them?’
“We couldn’t let you ruin everything for them.”
I glared at her.
“You are a virus, Miss Thompson.” She narrowed her eyes, and I narrowed mine back.
“You know what we do with viruses, don’t you?”
She’s bluffing, I thought. I glanced back around the room, at all the students who now lay lifeless—as though the fine chords that separate life from death had been cut.
I grabbed Ruby, jolting her back to reality. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
She began to back away, her eyes still glued to Sergeant Murk. Then she looked down at our table of table of friends, grabbed my hand, and pulled me as she took off running.
We took off out of the cafeteria and headed down a hall.
“Where are we gonna go?” Ruby gasped as we ran.
“I don’t know yet. But we have to keep moving.”
We turned a corner, and I searched my brain for somewhere, anywhere, we might hide.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
“Faster!” I said, pulling Ruby along.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
“We’ve got to get out of this place,” I called to Ruby. “Head for the entrance.”
“What about the fences? There’s no way out.”
“Trust me.”
“But they can see everything from the upper windows! We’ll be sitting ducks out there!”
We turned another corner and stopped abruptly.
Sergeant Conrad stood between us and the door.
“Any chance you’re on our side?” I asked.
“Allie, this is over. Come with me,” he replied.
“I don’t think so,” I said, shoving him aside. I grabbed Ruby’s arm and pulled her out the door with me. “I’m dead now,” I yelled breathlessly as we ran across the school yard. “I pushed a teacher!”
“I can’t believe you did that!”
I smiled. Something about it felt good.
We continued running, and as we did, I held tight to Ruby’s arm. She was all I had left now.
“Where are we going?” she asked again.
“Just keep running,” I said, looking to the windows in the building above us. On the third floor I could see Sergeant Garrett staring out at us. Did she know? Were they all against us now?
We reached the back of the schoolyard and I pulled Ruby toward the place where I had excited previously.
“Allie, this is ludicrous. I can’t climb that,” she said, looking up at the fence as she made her way through the hedge.
“You don’t need to.” I pointed to the break in the fence.
“That? I can’t fit through there.”
“Why not? I have.” I looked back at the school and saw a crowd beginning to form outside. The teachers. “Besides, I don’t think we have a whole lot of time to discuss it.
Ruby caught my gaze. “Oh god!”she gasped.
“Come on; you can do this,” I said, sliding between the poles. “See? No big deal.”
My eyes caught sight of dark figures running through the school yard.
“Ruby. Don’t look back. Just come. NOW!”
Her eyes darted back to the school. “Oh!”
“Come on! Hurry!”
“Allie…I can’t…I’m stuck.” Her face was panicked.
“No you aren’t. You’re almost out.”
She didn’t move.
“Ruby. None of this is real. You are whatever you think you are. You are skinny Ruby. Super, super skinny. Come on now, you can do this!”
“I can’t!”
The figures were getting closer. Teachers I had seen throughout the halls before were approaching us at speeds I never imagined they were capable of. I always knew that teachers were out to get me.
“It’s not a matter of can, Ruby. It’s already done,” I told her. “Believe it! See yourself on the other side!”
The mob was thirty feet away now. Ruby closed her eyes. The panic I had seen suddenly drifted from her face. She looked calm, peaceful.
And then, suddenly, she was through.
“YES!” I cried, grabbing her arm. I pulled her away as the mob reached the fence.
Just before we left, I caught a glimpse that made me do a double-take. The teachers didn’t look human anymore. The centers of their eyes were gray, their skin pale, and whitish. Their uniformed arms reached through the fence, grabbing.
“What the—” Ruby exclaimed.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said, pulling her further from the fence. “This way!” I took off running through the neighborhood, with Ruby close behind.
“This isn’t the neighborhood outside of the school,” Ruby noticed as we ran.
“No it’s not. It’s Bryan’s.”
She looked at me strangely.
We turned down Bryan’s street and continued running.
Come on. Be there. You have to be there.
As we approached his house, I could see the mailbox with the nameplate hanging below.
“What are we doing?” Ruby asked as I pulled her up the walk.
“Just follow me.”
Anna answered the door.
“Allie! What a nice surprise!”
I glanced to Ruby and saw the surprised look I expected.
I turned back to Mrs. Allen. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Allen, but I really have to talk to Bryan. Is he here?”
“Oh, no. He’s out looking for you.”
Shivers ran up my arms. I looked to Ruby again. This time I shared her surprise.
“He is?”
“Yes of course.”
“Do you have any idea where he’d go?”
“Where he always goes looking for you, Allie. Dean’s Bagel Shoppe.”
42. expulsion
We were running again.
Just as in my dream, as we reached the town, I could see it had now transformed into the area where I had tried to meet Bryan over a year ago. Across the street, in the center of a strip of shops—where the coffee shop had once been—now stood Dean’s Bagels.
As we waited for the traffic to clear so we could cross to Dean’s, Bryan stepped out of the bagel shop.
“Oh my god. It’s him,” I said, disbelieving.
“Who? Bryan?”
I nodded.
“Allie!” he yelled from across the street.
His image had been so sketchy in my brain for so long now. Just pieces remained lodged in my memory: his eyes, his beautiful heart-shaped face, his lips….Only in my dreams had I come close to recreating the complete picture. And now, there he was, as perfect as the day I first met him….the only day I’d met him.
“How will we know if it’s really him?” Ruby asked.
My mouth was still slightly agape from shock. I stared at her blankly.
“I’m sorry, Allie, but I don’t believe anything I’ve seen in the last hour.”
I watched as Bryan ran across Dean’s parking lot and stopped on the other side of the street, now also waiting for the traffic to clear. “I’ll come to you!” he yelled, and I could see his dimples dent in from the smile that had spread across his face. He seemed a bundled mess of nervous and excited.
I looked to Ruby. “Alright…” I said hesitantly. “You’re right. I’ll…I’ll ask him.”
She looked at me as though I’d lost my mind, but Bryan was quickly naviga
ting his way through the traffic.
“Allie!” he said, running toward me.
I held my hand out to stop him. “I’m sorry, but we have to be sure it’s you.”
He looked hurt but agreed. “No, you’re right to be cautious.”
“Where did we meet?” I asked.
“Online.”
“Too easy,” Ruby answered. “They would guess that.”
He nodded.
“Okay, what happened when we tried to make cookies at your mom’s house?”
“You got covered in flour,” he said, grinning.
“Oh, I did, huh? And you didn’t?” I answered, teasing. For a moment, I forgot all about The Academie.
“You looked so cute with flour on your nose.” He was still smiling.
I ran over to him. It was him. I was sure of it.
He pulled me close, picking me up off the ground.
“It’s so good to see you again,” I said.
I grabbed his hand as he set me back down, and despite everything going on, his touch made me feel warm all over.
“Okay, kids,” Ruby said. “I hate to break things up, but we have a little situation on our hands.”
“Right,” I said, looking from her back to Bryan. Man, his eyes are gorgeous….Focus Allie! “The…uh…oh man, where do we start?” All the emotion was starting to overwhelm me.
“The Academie. It’s after us. They are after us,” Ruby said.
“Our friends are all…” I couldn’t finish.
“So it’s happened?” Bryan said. “You’ve figured out too much, and they know you have. So they’ve initiated the emergency protocol.”
I shrugged. “What’s that mean?”
“No one can know what The Academie really is,” he explained.
“Of course!” I said, turning to Ruby. “That’s why Shara never came back.”
Ruby shook her head, obviously confused.
I tried to explain. “The Academie’s a computer program.”
“A super-sophisticated computer program,” Bryan clarified. “It’s high-tech virtual reality unlike anything I knew existed. I can’t even begin to explain how complex it is—I don’t fully understand it myself.”
Ruby still looked lost. “But why…?”
Bryan sighed. “Because they think it’s safer this way. I’ve been following their correspondence online. They don’t trust us—teenagers, young adults. They’re afraid. So they thought that this would keep us—and them—safe.”