by Amy Joy
I gasped, fearing the storm might come onto the grounds after all, but Bryan wrapped his arms around me. “It’s gonna be fine.”
We watched as the gale hit the fence and quickly dissipated.
Silence followed.
I glanced around. The stark contrast was unreal: on one side, The Academie stood tall, untouched. On the other, it was like staring at a blank sheet of paper.
Any lingering questions I had about whether this world was reality were now gone.
“The teachers.” I said, suddenly spinning around. I’d forgotten all about the angry mob that had chased Ruby and me as we left.
“Where are they?” Ruby whispered.
She was right. Not a person in sight.
“Could they be hiding?” I asked, looking to Bryan.
“They could, I suppose. But I don’t think so. Let’s stay quiet and keep a lookout. They could be anywhere.” He reached down and took my hand. “I can’t feel it,” he whispered, gesturing to our interlocking hands, “but it still makes me happy.” He looked into my eyes, and I was reminded of our night together under the meteor shower.
“I can.” I whispered, looking back down at our joined hands. “I missed you.”
“I’ve missed you more than you can imagine. I’ve been so worried…”
I held his hand tighter, then wondered if he had any idea. Could he see subtle changes like that in the lines of programming?
We made our way through the schoolyard without any sign of a teacher. As we approached the front entrance, I took a deep breath and held up my sword. “Somehow, this feels right,” I said.
“Let’s do this,” Ruby said.
Then she opened the door.
45. schoolcraft
I expected someone to jump out at us. But what we found was almost worse.
Dead silence.
The bodies of students that had slumped across tables, chairs, and onto the floor were now gone, along with the teachers. No sound. No movement. Just an eerie stillness.
“Let’s head down that way,” I whispered, pointing to the left hallway off the cafeteria.
Ruby nodded, followed by Bryan.
I held up my sword and lead the way. Bryan released my hand as I moved ahead.
Somehow the loss felt like goodbye.
I wanted to turn—to see if he was still there—but there was too much at stake now. The teachers were still here, I was sure of it. They were watching, waiting…
We turned and headed down the back hallway.
That’s when we saw her.
At first, I thought it must be Sergeant Murk again. But the figure appeared smaller.
“Well, well, well. Bryan, you’ve come at last. We’ve been expecting you.” The voice echoed through the dark hall, sending shivers up my spine.
I slowed, letting Bryan and Ruby catch up on either side of me.
“Bryan, I don’t know who that is,” I whispered. “How does she know you?”
He shook his head.
As we approached, I began to make out the figure of a petite woman in her mid-fifties. And I could see that she stood directly in front of the doorway—our escape.
“Bryan. Nice to see you,” the woman said.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
“What, you don’t know me?” her eyes were sweetly piercing—like somebody’s grandma gone bad. “Well, surely Bryan does.”
I glanced at Bryan. No response.
“Oh come on. This is my place, my world.”
“Schoolcraft,” Bryan said softly. He looked like he had seen a ghost.
“There’s a good boy. Well, that’s not entirely true though is it, Bryan. You haven’t been good. In fact, I’m not sure who’s been causing us more trouble—you, or your girlfriend.” She looked from him to me and smiled.
“But not for long. I’m so happy you came to join us today.” Her smile was sickeningly sweet.
“Bryan, what does she mean?” I whispered. Her very presence made me uneasy.
“They’re tracking me,” he said. His body was rigid, his face expressionless as he spoke. “The longer I’m here, the more likely they are to find me.”
Schoolcraft’s smile turned up tight at the corners. Crow’s feet jetted out artificially from her eyes. “He’s so smart, Allie. I can see why you like him. We liked him too, but he didn’t like us. T-t-t-t.” She shook her head. “Didn’t we treat you well, Bryan? Why’d you have to leave us?”
“She’s stalling,” he whispered. “We have to move quickly! We have to get her away from the door.”
We tried to move forward, but the teachers came from out of nowhere. Lifeless faces and empty eyes—the faces of sergeants I’d known, grossly distorted. They were reaching—reaching to grab and hold on to any part of us they could.
I pushed Bryan and Ruby behind me and brandished my sword before us, but the teachers were pressing in on all sides. There was no way I could protect us all, and my friends held no weapon. What were we thinking?
Schoolcraft was still talking. “A girlfriend to protect you. My how times have changed…. Isn’t this nice?”
She was still stalling.
“Bryan, you have to get out of here,” I urged.
“I won’t leave you…”
“Ah, young love,” Schoolcraft said in a sing-song manner.
I ignored her. “They can’t find you!”
“Come now, Bryan. Please staaaay,” Schoolcraft hissed.
“Bryan go! Please…” I begged. He was still behind me. I couldn’t see him, but I could feel him close.
And I could feel him as he disappeared.
46. the door
For a moment, I stood frozen.
Then Schoolcraft began to laugh. An evil, cackling laugh. The kind of laugh you hoped your grandma didn’t have—because if she did, you’d know with certainty that her body wasn’t just deteriorating with age. It was rotting.
“What do you want?” I sputtered.
“Just what any good schoolmaster wants. I want peace and order in my school. I want students to obey the rules.”
“Well, that’s not going to happen, now is it?” I flashed the sword in front of her.
Another long, rolling laugh poured out of her.
I started forward, but Ruby pulled me back.
Schoolcraft stopped laughing and turned her head sharply toward the ceiling. “SWORD!” she yelled.
Ruby and I looked at each other. Was the old woman mad?
But there, a moment later, a sword appeared in her hand, nearly identical to the one in my own.
“They’re programming whatever she needs,” Ruby said softly. Her face looked stricken.
Schoolcraft was laughing again. “You don’t make the rules, Miss Thompson. I do.”
I took a step forward. “You think you can take me? What are you? Eighty?”
Her face curled into a sneer.
“For your information, young lady, the only reason you were able to receive such a grand fitness regimen was because I required it. I was a champion athlete in my day…and my day is now.”
She flung her sword toward me. I jumped just in time to miss it.
“Use your sword!” Ruby reminded.
“Thanks!” I answered, blocking as Schoolcraft swung again. She may have caught me off guard before, but now I was ready. For months I had longed to be free of rules, free of the confinement. Now was my chance. I whirled at her ready to strike—
I stopped short. The realization came that I wasn’t holding a practice foil and this wasn’t a tournament. In my hand was a real sword—or as real as this world got anyway. If I injure someone in this world, what happens?
Schoolcraft used my delay to her advantage. Where a moment ago she was on the defensive, now I was.
Her strength was surprising. How could a woman of her age….?
They weren’t playing fair. There’s no way Schoolcraft could maneuver like this at her age—whatever that actually was.
I pushed th
oughts of bodily harm aside and took the offensive again. Clang! Clang! Clang! Our weapons met with force.
What happens if one of us is injured here? The question tugged at my brain.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
I couldn’t get past it. There was no way I could injure this woman—regardless how evil—without knowing that it wouldn’t hurt her in real life.
I took my sword, and with all the strength I had, I forced hers from her hand.
For a moment, her face looked panicked.
But she quickly regained composure. “You think you’ve won? I can summon whatever weapon I need any time I need it.
“But then, I don’t have to fight, do I? Did you like my storm? I can do whatever I want. That’s what scares you, isn’t it? Well…that and the fact that right now my people are on their way to pick up Bryan.”
My insides turned. I stared her down. Who was she to mess with our lives this way? Who was she to take away our freedom and set herself up like a god over us?
My anger boiled, and suddenly, I was unstoppable.
I dropped my sword and reeled at her, channeling my hurt and fury for all those The Academie had taken from me. Shara, Matt, Stevie, Tina, Robert, Cayden, Andy, my parents, Bryan. My pain now had a name: Schoolcraft.
Our bodies collided, mine hurtling into hers. She screamed and fell backward onto the tile.
The moment she hit, I realized what I had done. Never before had I caused someone bodily harm. I stood there in shock, watching, waiting for her to get up.
But she didn’t.
What have I done?
Something pulled at my arm.
A voice came. It sounded distant. “Allie, we have to go.”
I couldn’t stop staring at her, lying there helpless on the ground. What have I done?
“Allie! NOW!” The voice was Ruby’s. She yanked my arm, and I snapped back into focus.
Then I saw it.
The door was ahead of us, now only feet away.
I looked back at Schoolcraft. Did she move? Zombie teachers were closing in on us.
We ran to door. Ruby got there first and pulled at the handle.
Nothing.
She tried again and again, beating her shoulder against the door, but it wouldn’t budge.
A sound came from the floor. Indistinguishable at first. Then I knew it: Schoolcraft was laughing.
“Let me try,” I said, pushing Ruby aside.
I repeated her motions anxiously—Schoolcraft was sitting up—turn, push, nothing.
I beat on the door furiously.
I tried the handle again. I turned, I pushed, and then I slammed my body against it. Turn, push, slam! Turn, push, slam!
Nothing.
Ruby began slamming against it with me.
“Bryan please!” I yelled, hoping somehow, somewhere, he could hear. “BRYAN, UNLOCK THE DOOR!!!”
The cackling grew louder. I turned to see Schoolcraft attempting to stand.
Turn, push, slam!
Turn, push, SLAM!
The door gave way.
Ruby and I fell crashing into nothingness.
I caught sight of Schoolcraft’s face just as everything disappeared.
47. happy sadness
I opened my eyes.
The world was fuzzy, but I knew where I was. Back in the room with the beeping computers.
But this time, I was fully conscious.
I became aware of the hospital gown and sheet draped over me, and the many wires taped to my body. I began to pull at the ones on my face. They tugged my skin, not wanting to give way; I could feel them distort my face for a moment before releasing. The ones laid on hair brought tears to my eyes as I forced them to let go.
Yanking the last from my neck, I moved down to my shoulders and chest. Then to my torso and stomach. Abs? I never had abs before…
Then I sat up.
As I removed the tapes from my arms, I glanced around. Row after row of students on gurneys like mine filled the room.
Except they were still unconscious.
I continued peeling away the wires. How many are there?
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of red.
My heart beat wildly, knowing that any moment someone could come and I could be thrust back into The Academie system.
My eyes found the red: Ruby was sitting up, pulling off her own wires. I resumed tugging at mine, but my eyes scanned the room, watching for movement.
“AH!” I cried out in pain as I pulled a tape from the back of my hand. I looked down to see blood spilling over the white sheet and hospital gown that covered me. Shit. The tape had been attached to an IV. I grabbed up a bit of the sheet and pushed it against my hand, attempting to stop the blood.
“Allie, are you okay?” Ruby called in a whisper.
“Yeah, be careful with the IV.”
I wrapped the sheet around my bleeding left hand, and continued pulling wires off with my right. Thigh, butt, calf, ankle, foot, toe: the wires were everywhere.
When I thought I was free, I started to move from the gurney, only to find more wires I had missed, attached to my back. I yanked, and grudgingly, they fell away.
I unwound the sheet from my hand and found that the bleeding had slowed, so I dropped the sheet and hopped from the table. The tile was shockingly cold against my bare feet, and initially, my legs felt strange—like after an hour of ice skating, when you return to regular shoes. I forced myself to adjust—tottering slightly as I moved—and made my way over to Ruby, who was still wrenching wires from her body.
Dozens of bodies separated her from me, and I was forced to weave my way through them. I tried not to look, but it was impossible. My body still hadn’t found its equilibrium and my legs couldn’t quite remember how they were supposed to work. I grabbed onto the gurneys for support, only to be confronted with faces I recognized from classes. Faces that lay too still to be alive. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the place was a morgue.
I reached Ruby as she attempted to move from the table. “Wait.” I said, stopping her. “There’s some on your back.”
Gently, I peeled off the tapes.
“Thanks.”
She jumped from the table.
“Careful. It takes a minute to adjust.”
She tottered as I had, grabbing the gurney next to hers for support. I watched as she peered at the face on the table—the one I hadn’t noticed until then: Stevie.
“Oh god, Allie. We have to get her out of here.”
“We have to get them all out of here,” I said, looking around. “I wish Bryan were here. We need someone with computer skills.”
“We can do this. We just need to think it through.”
“What if we pull something wrong though? We don’t know what we are messing with.”
“Allie, we have to. We can’t leave them here.”
I looked closer at the bodies that surrounded us. They weren’t peaceful like those in coffins at funerals I’d attended. These were different: living bodies, trapped. “Okay, we can figure this out. What do we know?”
“Well, we’re out. And we were able to pull off the wires, and we seem to be fine.” Her eyes caught sight of my injured hand. “Allie, you’re bleeding.”
I looked down to see a stream of blood running down my hand.
Ruby grabbed the sheet from her bed and tore at it, until a narrow piece of cloth broke free. She grabbed my hand, took the strip, and wrapped it gently around and around.
“Thanks. You’re a great mom.”
She smiled, and I saw a happy sadness in her eyes.
“Okay, so we were able to get out without trouble, but we came through the door in the program. That’s my concern: if we just pull the others out, what will it do to their minds? Can they make the transition?”
“They’re sleeping now.” The voice wasn’t mine. It was a man’s, deep, but gentle.
We spun to find someone in lab coat standing in the doorway. Another man stood behind
him. The first was bearded and balding, with dark-rimmed glasses that framed soft, kindly eyes. The man behind him was too blurry for my still-adjusting vision.
“You can’t keep them here,” I said. “It’s over. We’re leaving. And we’re taking them with us.”
The second man stepped forward and came into view. “Allie?”
“Matt?”
48. dr. stanford
“You’re okay? I thought…”
“I figured out the door,” Matt said as he approached. “I wanted to tell you, but I thought I’d check it out first. That didn’t quite work out the way I planned…”
“I woke him just a while ago. He’s been helping me,” the man with the kindly eyes said. “I’m Dr. Rupert.”
“You’ve been…?” Wearing a lab coat over his hospital gown, Matt now stood beside Dr. Rupert. Whose side is he on?
“I became disenchanted with the program months ago,” Rupert said, “when discussions began about extending The Academie enrollment to age 30.”
I thought my heart stopped. Then I realized I hadn’t breathed. I gasped.
“Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction. My son’s in there. But it’s more than that. It’s wrong. They can’t keep you like this.”
“So why haven’t you stopped it yet?” Ruby asked.
“Good question,” Rupert said. “We’ve been trying—Matt and I.”
Matt nodded. “It’s not that simple. Obviously, the program’s being monitored, so we have to be careful. But also, there are only certain ways out—without at least temporary if not permanent brain damage.”
“—we don’t know for sure,” Rupert chimed in. “But we don’t want to find out either.”
“So what do we do?” I asked.
“Well, luckily, thanks to you both, these students are now in a sleep state.”
“They aren’t in the program anymore?” Ruby asked.
“Right. As a fail-safe to keep everyone else from finding out what you two were catching onto, my colleagues and I were told to pull the students from the program and put them in a dream state until all was set straight.”