The Academie

by Amy Joy

  He spun to look at me. “They’re considering extending it again.” His eyes were wild, urgent.

  “They won’t,” I said. “We’re going to end this.”

  “So wait,” Ruby interrupted. “What happened to Shara?”

  “She must have woken up from the system when she meditated. She would have learned too much, so they couldn’t put her back into the program,” I explained.

  I turned to Bryan. “She should be okay, right?”

  “I’m sorry, but there’s no way to know.”

  “So what does that mean for us?” Ruby asked.

  “It means they’re going to eliminate you from the program,” Bryan answered. “You’re being expelled.”

  “But our friends, are they—” Ruby cut off.

  “They should be fine. They shut down the avatars so they couldn’t learn any more. Once they delete you from the program, they can re-initiate the other students and move on without trouble. Your friends will probably wake up where they left off, with no memory of what has happened. If the programmers do it right, your friends may not even remember knowing you when this is finished.”

  “That’s not right,” Ruby said, obviously offended.

  I began to get nervous. By now the teachers—or whatever they were—surely would have made their way through the fence and be heading this way. “We need a plan.”

  “How are you here?” Ruby interrupted. She looked at Bryan accusingly.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I defended.

  “Yes it does,” she insisted. Ruby turned to Bryan. “How?”

  He looked at me apologetically. “I’m not. I’m in Canada.”

  I backed away. “What?”

  “I’m sorry…”

  My head began to ache as a sick, spinning feeling came over me. Nothing made sense anymore.

  “It’s a program, Allie.” His voice was soft and gentle.

  “You wrote yourself in,” I said, trying to steady myself.

  He nodded.

  A raw ache in my chest competed with the pain in my head. I felt betrayed—not even so much by him—but by myself. I thought for sure he was really there.

  Tina was right. How could I ever know for sure what was real?

  “You wrote all of this,” I said, looking at Dean’s and the strip of stores around it. I turned back in the direction from where we came. You put your old neighborhood here.”

  “I thought it could help you. I hoped you could find me when you needed me. I couldn’t leave you here.” He looked at the sky and then back to me. “I couldn’t enjoy being out of The Academie, knowing you were still in it. And once I figured out what it was, I knew I could do something. I had to.”

  “Did you happen to figure a way out of here?” Ruby asked.

  “There is a way,” he said, looking from her to me. “There’s one way....There’s a door.”

  “Did you create it? Please say it’s out here somewhere,” I pleaded. “In your house?”

  “I didn’t…I couldn’t….There’s only one.”

  I knew what he’d say next.

  “It’s inside The Academie.”

  43. lines of code

  “We need a plan before we go back in there,” Ruby said.

  “Definitely.” I turned to Bryan. “The school’s surrounded by an angry mob of—uh… zombie teachers.”

  His eyes widened. “I see…” He took a deep breath. “So much for sneaking in.” He sat down in the grass at the sidewalk’s edge.

  “Does the program have a weakness?” I asked, sitting beside him.

  Ruby didn’t sit. Instead, she paced back and forth on the sidewalk in front of us.

  “Of course,” he answered. “No program’s flawless.”

  Ruby stopped her pacing. “Do you know what this program’s flaws are?”

  He smiled. “Yes.” A dimple showed. “At the moment, they’re us.”

  I grinned.

  Ruby remained serious.

  “Okay, so tell me more about this door. Do you know where it is?”

  He sighed and shook his head slightly.

  Ruby resumed pacing.

  “I tried to find it, but I just—I—”

  “Okay, do you know anything about it that could help us find it?” I asked.

  “A little.” He squirmed. “Not much. All I know is they’ll want to hide it. And of course, they’ll want to make it inaccessible to students.”

  “There are so many places like that,” Ruby noted as she paced.

  I didn’t reply. Instead I tried to remember all the places I’d been at The Academie since it opened. The places they took us on the tour when Matt started. The places I’d been when I visited him…. “There was a dark hallway I went down,” I said to Bryan. “Remember, I told you about the hallway I went down by mistake when I visited Matt?”

  “Yeah, but didn’t you say that you thought it might have been a dorm?”

  “Yeah?”

  “They wouldn’t put it somewhere like that. Too risky.”

  We were silent again, and I resumed scanning my memory for places.

  “The addition,” Ruby said, stopping again. “Cayden mentioned the walk you guys took once, when he came to find you.”

  My heart sped up, and my stomach felt sick. I really didn’t want to Bryan to know about Cayden. I didn’t want him to think anything might be going on—since it wasn’t.

  I looked to Ruby and silently begged for her to steer clear of the subject. She stared back.

  Thankfully, Bryan seemed unfazed. “What addition?”

  “On the back of the building,” I said. “I don’t have any idea where any of it goes. The door could be anywhere in there.”

  “More likely though, it’s somewhere in plain sight, just totally overlooked,” he said.

  Suddenly it hit me. “I know where it is.”

  “You do?” Ruby looked surprised.

  “I wandered into it—well, almost—on our first full day at The Academie—the day we took all the placement tests. I was so tired and lost—.” I looked to Ruby for support “Do you remember?”

  She nodded.

  “I opened the door and there was…” I trailed off, searching for words.

  “Nothing?” Bryan asked.

  I nodded.

  “That’s it,” he said, looking to Ruby.

  “It has to be,” I replied. “Sergeant Murk found me there, and she was not a happy camper.”

  “When is Sergeant Murk ever happy?” Ruby asked, still skeptical.

  “I’m telling you, that place was weird. Unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.”

  “That’s got to be it,” Bryan said.

  “So what is it?” Ruby still looked unsure.

  “It’s the unwritten part of the program. You walk in, your consciousness is jarred to reality, and you wake up. Back in the real world.”

  “What about you?” I asked.

  “I don’t need to go through the door, so I’ll make sure you two get through safely, and then I’ll disappear.”

  “How?”

  “He’s a program,” Ruby reminded.

  I had almost forgotten. I reached out, touching his face, his hair. He felt so real.

  His eyes looked sad. “I’m sorry; I wish I were there for real. But I am here, in some way.” He reached out and stroked my cheek.

  The fine line of reality had become so blurred; my mind was starting to swim. “But you’re real…” The ache in my chest made it difficult to breathe.

  “I’m still here. It’s going to be okay.”

  I stared back blankly, uncomprehending. What’s real? If something could walk and talk and feel and look and act real, does that make it real?

  He reached over and grasped my hand. Somehow, it felt different to me now. He can’t feel any of this…

  “So who’s programming us?” Ruby asked.

  “Well, it’s different….” Bryan sighed again. “I mean, I think you’re still in control, except you’re n
ot….” He struggled to explain. “I’m sitting at home at my computer, programming everything. But you….I think they have you somewhere… unconscious. I think you’re hooked into the computer.”

  “He’s right.” The words came out slowly, almost as if they weren’t my own. “I woke up there before.”

  “You did?” Bryan looked concerned.

  “Twice. Once in math class. The other time, I was meditating.”

  He turned, grasped my shoulders lightly, and looked at me intently. “What did you see?”

  “I didn’t. But I felt it. There were wires. Lots of wires. And I heard things. Beeping….Men.” I looked at the ground, struggling to remember. “Two men were talking. They saw me wake up. He—one of the men—he made me go back to sleep.”

  I looked at Bryan. “That was the first time—in Algebra. I thought I passed out and had a weird dream. But later, I wasn’t so sure.”

  “Why? What else do you remember?” he asked gently.

  I shook my head. “The last time I just remember the muscles contracting in my legs. It hurt so bad…”

  “They may have you hooked up to machines to keep you in shape. They must,” he said, realization dawning on him. “Otherwise they could never keep you there so long.”

  I looked at him blankly.

  He explained. “Your muscles would atrophy from not being used. But if you send the right electrical impulse to a muscle, you can make it contract.”

  Shivers ran up and down my arms. I shook my head, trying to shake the image from my mind.

  “That’s where you’re going to wake up, so you gotta be ready for it,” Bryan said, looking from me to Ruby.

  Ruby had stopped pacing. Her face was white. She stared expressionless. Finally, she gathered herself and nodded. “So we wake up, rip out the wires—hopefully—and make a run for it?”

  I shrugged, then nodded.

  “Those guys you mentioned. Can I kick their asses before we go?” The color was coming back to her face.

  I grinned. “Oh, most definitely.” I didn’t think she was serious, but even joking about it seemed to make us both feel better.

  “Okay, an angry mob of teachers….” She’d moved back to the previous dilemma and resumed her pacing.

  “Well, technically we don’t know they’re still there,” I said. “We’ve been gone for—how long you think we’ve been gone?”

  “An hour?”

  “They’ve probably positioned themselves throughout the grounds, to be ready for your return,” Bryan said.

  “That’s if they think we will return,” I said. “What would make them think we would?”

  “The program doesn’t go very far,” he answered.

  “What, they didn’t program—” I glanced around me. “Oh right, yeah I guess they couldn’t program indefinitely. So wouldn’t there be doors out here then?”

  “There’s no need for one out here. The door inside the Academie is an emergency exit for faculty—in case they need to get out before their shift is over. Out here,” he looked around him, “the program ends. It has walls, boundaries written in. When you reach them, you know.”

  I glanced back at the shops and the cars driving past. “The people out here don’t need emergency exits,” I said as reality set in. “They aren’t people…. They’re programs.”

  “Right.”

  “I think I knew that. It’s just…my mind’s still making sense of all of it.” I took a deep breath and then looked at Ruby. “I think I’m ready.”

  “But—”

  I interrupted her protest. “We do have a plan. We fight.”

  I turned to Bryan. “I’m going to need a sword.”

  “Excuse me?” He looked as shocked as I expected.

  “Preferably a small sword, ‘cuz, you know,” I gestured to my petite figure.

  “A sword,” he repeated.

  “Small sword,” I reiterated.

  Ruby’s mouth slowly turned up at the corners.

  I smiled back.

  “Basic Fitness,” she said to Bryan. “She’s become a legend for her mad fencing skills.”

  I grinned. “I’ll make them regret the day they placed me in basic classes.”

  Bryan was still looking at me with a mixture of surprised confusion and awe.

  “You can write a sword into the program, right?”

  Finally, he smiled. “Yeah, give me a minute. I’ll uh…be right back.”

  He disappeared and my heart sank. What if he didn’t return? I immediately regretted asking for the sword.

  Ruby sat down next to me on the sidewalk. “None of this seems real, does it?”

  I shook my head.

  We sat there in silence, watching the cars driving past.

  “None of it is real,” I said finally.

  With that, the sky turned a deep gray. Dark clouds formed overhead.

  “What the hell?” I scanned the sky. It hardly ever stormed since I began at The Academie. I never saw the sky turn black that quickly.

  Ruby looked concerned. “We should take cover.”

  “But what about Bryan?” I protested.

  “Just under there then,” she said, pointing to the overhang on a nearby shop.

  “Fine.” I followed her through the grass and parking lot. As soon as we reached the shop, the wind began to blow. Just then, I saw Bryan reappear where we had been. A long piece of metal glinted at his side. He looked around, searching. I waved, and he ran to join us.

  “What’s with the weather?” he asked as he reached the overhang.

  “Came out of nowhere,” Ruby answered.

  I was busy admiring my sword.

  “What do you think?” he asked as he held it out to me.

  “Perfect.” Our hands touched briefly as I received it, and I didn’t know which gave me the greater high: beautiful piece of weaponry or his skin against mine. None of it’s real, I reminded myself. Sure feels real, my mind protested.

  “I was going to get you one of those King Arthur ones, but then I realized it’d probably be way too heavy, so I just looked up ‘small sword’ and copied one off a website.”

  “Guys? We have a problem.” Gazing at the oncoming storm, Ruby looked anxious.

  The wind kicked up hard. Bryan grabbed my arm as the current attempted to take me with it. “Woa!” he said, pulling me back.

  “Guys! The rain! Look!” Ruby was frantic.

  In the distance, I could see what looked like streaks of rain pouring down from the sky. But where the rain hit the ground…

  Nothing.

  Where there previously were shops and buildings, birds and trees, now there were chunks missing. Perfect squares of clean white, like a pixilated puzzle.

  They were erasing everything.

  44. subtle changes

  “We have to get back to the school as fast as we can,” Bryan shouted over the storm. Run!” He pushed Ruby and me away from the shop and back toward The Academie.

  “Won’t they delete the school?” I yelled as we ran.

  “They can’t. They need it. All of this is re-writable or disposable. Including us.” He looked worried.

  Ruby lead the way. I knew she was a strong runner, but she had undersold her skills. Thanks to Basic Fitness, I wasn’t doing a bad job of keeping up.

  Bryan ran by my side. “Once we are within the school grounds, we should be safe,” he called.

  We ran through Bryan’s artificial neighborhood for what I now knew would be the last time. Knowing he’d moved while I’d been in school meant that I’d never be here again in real life either. I used the pain of this loss to push myself to run even faster.

  Behind us I could hear the rain. I wanted to look back, but I knew it’d slow us down, so I didn’t dare.

  When we reached the fence, we found Ruby panicking. “The opening. It was here, wasn’t it? It was here.”

  She was right. I’d been through that place five times now. But now, it was nowhere to be found.

  Ru
by paced back and forth along the fence, searching. “What do we do?”

  I looked to Bryan, hoping he’d have an answer, but as I turned, he disappeared. “Where’s Bryan? He was right here!”

  We were trapped outside the grounds, with sixteen-foot prison fences blocking our way.

  I turned to see the rain falling ever closer. Square chunks were missing from houses, mailboxes, trees, shrubbery, and road. Pieces of sky were replaced by patches of clear white. I watched as the rain erased the last squares of Bryan’s neighborhood.

  “We have to do something!” I yelled over the rush of the storm. I flung myself at the fence, trying desperately to climb its mesh links, but they were too tightly woven, leaving nowhere for me to get a foot hold. Each attempt found me falling back to earth.

  Ruby was now kicking and hurling herself at the fence. When that didn’t work, she found rocks to beat and cut at it with, but every attempt to damage it seemed pointless. The fence stood unaltered.

  Another gust of wind blew, and I grabbed on to the metal links to keep myself in place. The sound of the rain was now deafening. I looked behind us just in time to see it wiping out the last of the world around us. Only a small section of grass remained between us and the oncoming storm.

  “BRYYYANNN!” I screamed desperately.

  “Over here!” His voice came from a short way down the fence. I grabbed Ruby’s arm and pulled her that direction. The wind was so strong now that moving was difficult. We stayed close to the fence, hanging on to it and each other for support.

  As we reached Bryan, I could barely make out his yelling over the noise of the storm. “I couldn’t stop the rain! But I made this.” He pointed to the fence, and I could see that where there previously had been none, now there was a break just large enough for each of us to fit through.

  The storm howled ferociously and Bryan pulled us to the opening.

  We pushed through quickly—Ruby first, then me, followed by Bryan.

  No sooner had Bryan reached the other side, and the last few pieces of green space disappeared from beyond the fence.