Freelancer (3 page)

“What? Are we so far beneath you that you can’t even respond to us?” Rob taunted again, apparently unsatisfied with David’s indifference.

“It’s not that he thinks he’s better than us, Rob, it’s just that he wishes we were all dead,” Sarah said. Kari would recognize that hateful voice anywhere. The students laughed as a few of the boys mimed shooting each other at the front of the room. David sat down at his desk without responding. A sopping-wet jacket flew across the room and hit him in the side of the face.

“Oops, my bad!” Jack shouted as David turned around angrily to see who had thrown it. “I thought the seat was open because I didn’t see a US citizen there.”

Just leave him alone . . .

David’s face turned red with anger, but he didn’t react. Kari was impressed at David’s discipline, because she was about to turn at yell at her peers, and they weren’t even picking on her this time.

“Please, take your seats!” Thomas shouted. The learning leader had finally arrived to start class.
This might be the only time I’ve ever been relieved to hear Thomas’s voice.
Common sentiments upon hearing his nasally voice included, but were not limited to, annoyance; indifference; minor aggravation; and, depending on the current state of the list of other things Kari could be doing with her time, anger.

The students dutifully took their seats without complaint.
OK, Kari, you can do this.
There was nothing
Kari looked forward to more than being finished with school. Moving out to her own place after graduation so she could buy more printers was a distant second place. Right now, she had only a few printers readily accessible to her at home, and those printers were primarily used for clothes, food, and school assignments—nothing interesting. Kari was tired of having to sneak across town to use printers that were capable of printing more interesting projects.

Kari had been programming for years anonymously as a freelancer, and that required printing numerous projects her parents wouldn’t approve of. Clients would contact her for a project, and she would build it for them if it were something that interested and challenged her. That work generally required being able to print items that only commercial-grade printers could produce. Thus, she had spent the past few years buying up old storage lockers and knocking down the walls between them to build a place where she could print larger, more complicated items. She had started calling it her factory, as she hadn’t been able to think of a more affectionate name.

“Good morning, and thank you for coming today,” Learning Leader Thomas said. Kari sat up straight and placed her bag on the floor next to her desk. Learning leaders were mostly incompetent, except for their ability to tell when a student was not paying attention—a skill they unfortunately excelled at.

“I found this past week to be
very
interesting. Would someone like to start our discussion today by sharing what
they
found to be interesting?” Thomas asked.

A couple of students sitting toward the front of the room raised their hands. As usual, Thomas called on one of the overeager students and thanked him benevolently for being willing to share.

“I think the Middle States deciding to separate from the Union was very interesting.” The comment had come from a red-haired boy named Connor. He sounded like he knew exactly how Thomas would respond. This exercise wasn’t too impressive, as everyone knew exactly what was going to happen next.

“
We’ll not be discussing anything of speculative nature today, Connor,” Thomas said.

Speculative? Everyone knows the Middle States are declaring independence today. Not even you are that clueless, Thomas. This is just going to be one of the most important events in history, but let’s not talk about it.
Kari didn’t want to hear Thomas’s or her peers’ opinions about the matter anyway, but it was ridiculous that they were simply going to act like nothing was happening. Kari spent hours every day reading news and thinking about how life was going to change if a war started. It was extremely troubling, especially for someone with her talents and work experience.

Thomas forced a change in the conversation with a wide smile. “Did anyone find anything of interest in our lesson material for this week?”

“I found it interesting that we were asked to study the programming of drones,” Sarah said.

“And why is that, Sarah?”

“Well, there doesn’t really seem to be much of a need for this type of work anymore.”

“You mean programming drones?”

“Drones seem to work perfectly already. And even if we could make them better, no more than a handful of people on the planet are needed for that,” Sarah said. “I wish we could have spent the week learning about something more widely applicable.”

How long did it take you to think of that comment, you suck-up?
As much as Kari hated Sarah, she had to acknowledge Sarah’s skill at manipulating learning leaders.

“Very interesting, Sarah. Like what?”

“I don’t know, maybe something that expresses a greater level of humanity and creativity, like art or music composition.”

“Thank you, Sarah. Very interesting thoughts indeed,” Thomas said with a smile. “Does anyone want to respond to Sarah’s thoughts?”

Would anyone like to continue to tell us how we should be focusing on art instead?
Kari quipped to herself. Sure enough, Thomas called another student seated near the front of the classroom and led a discussion for several minutes about how, in the modern economy, only people who contributed to a higher cultural experience were truly valued.

It wasn’t that Kari disagreed with the sentiment. Times had changed; creativity was really the only way to make a difference. The jobs of the past, such as accountants, construction workers, and shop owners, didn’t have a place in the modern economy. She knew this as well as anyone did—her father’s parents had been shop owners during her early childhood before being put out of business by the global availability of three-dimensional printers. There were only three jobs now. You could be a creative, a raw-materials worker, or a government worker.

What bothered her was the fact that school had trained students to think that creativity existed only in so-called higher art forms. What the school failed to understand was that creativity existed even in the most mundane fields. It was Kari’s ability to be creative in nontraditional art forms that had made her into the secret success she was today. Kari believed that optimizing drones to interact with each other required just as much creativity as writing a song. But that didn’t play well into the narrative the school system had rehearsed to her and her fellow students.

“Kari?” Thomas’s voice jarred her attention back to the present.

“Yes?” Kari asked innocently, causing a round of faint laughter from her peers. She felt her face flush, and her heart started beating a little faster.

“I asked you if you had anything to add to this conversation,” Thomas said, seemingly pleased that she was caught off guard.

“I agree,” Kari said. She had long since learned to always agree. The school system wasn’t kind to those who thought differently, at least not here.

“Really? You agree with David’s assertion that ignoring the reality of the ‘world we live in’ is foolish and that we should all be learning skills such as this?”

Kari cursed in her mind. She hadn’t realized that David had spoken last. On the scale of traditionalist to forward thinker, David was as old-fashioned as they came. His family had a manual car they drove around town, and they grew their own food because they “didn’t trust the government.” Worse than his traditionalism was the fact that he and his family were known Middle Staters. That was a bad thing to be, given current events. Kari’s proven formula for middling success at school centered on agreeing with the learning leader and distancing herself as far she could from whatever David said.

David turned back and looked Kari in the eyes; an understandable glimmer of hope was hidden behind his gaze. Kari had never thought of David as a particularly good-looking boy, but it occurred to her that he wasn’t the worst-looking boy in her grade by any means. He had light-green eyes, and his ears were just a little too big for him in an endearing sort of way. This would be the first time in years that anyone had agreed with David. Kari felt alone and different from everyone else in school, but David might be the only person who could feel more so. Kari met his eyes for a brief moment.
He does have nice eyes,
she thought before breaking their brief connection.
I’m sorry.

“Of course not. I apologize, I got distracted,” Kari said without daring to look at David.

“Then you disagree with what David has added to our conversation?” Thomas asked.
This is why I hate you, Thomas! I apologized, now just let me be.

“Yes, I think David has an antiquated view of society. The likelihood that we will contribute anything that would benefit society by pursuing such skills is low,” Kari said calmly, rattling off what she knew Thomas wanted to hear. Her mood grew cold as she instantly felt that she had betrayed both herself and David.

“What about enforcement? Or defense?” David asked. For some reason, he was still searching for a way to get Kari to even partially agree with him.

“Yes, what about enforcement and defense, Kari?” Thomas asked with another smile. Thomas apparently knew that Kari was now trapped directly between having an argument with David and having one with the rest of the class. It would be an argument that Thomas would giddily preside over to ensure the desired outcome.

For a brief second, Kari thought about just agreeing with David to spite Thomas, but she knew that would cause her more trouble than good. She needed to survive in this system for another thirty-seven and a half weeks, and having Thomas attack her in every class wouldn’t make that any easier. Besides, she wasn’t a fan of enforcement or defense.

“There hasn’t been a need for defense in a hundred years, and enforcement spends 99.9 percent of their time doing regulation and mediating,” Kari said somewhat bitterly.
That won’t end it; Thomas will want more.
“Besides, David, I thought you didn’t like enforcement regulating you, anyway.”

“We need the drones to transport goods and to help fight criminals and stuff—”

“Lawbreakers, like those people who try to break the United States in half?” Kari asked. The class oohed at her not-so-subtle reference.

“We’re not going to discuss that, Miss Tahe,” Thomas interrupted.

“Come on, Kari, you know this stuff is way more important to learn than most of the stuff we do here,” David said. His voice was softer now, as if he were desperate to find even a little common ground with someone.

Thomas looked at Kari, waiting for her to reply. She silently agreed with David, but the argument had taken over, and she could think of nothing else other than ways she could win it, even if she didn’t agree with what she was saying.

“Maybe if you learned a little more of what was taught here, the government wouldn’t need swarms of drones to keep you from being so rebellious,” she said.

“OK, OK,” Thomas said. “That’s enough of that.”

Kari couldn’t stand looking at Thomas’s smug face, so she made the mistake of looking at David. Those once-hopeful eyes now looked back at her—betrayed—and Kari felt her heart sink.
He shouldn’t have been surprised; he knows I don’t agree with him on most things. Besides, he’s the one who made it more than academic.

Thomas moved the discussion forward, and Kari tuned Thomas out. She hated Thomas.

She hated herself, too.
Why did you do that? You coward. David’s the only one in your grade who has ever stuck up for you.
It had been years ago, back when Sarah and her friends had done everything they could to tear Kari down. Younger kids went to school three times a week. Tuesdays and Thursdays, therefore, had been opportunities for Sarah and her friends to spend all day thinking of ways to humiliate Kari.

Kari didn’t remember much except for one day when Sarah and her friends had managed to get under Kari’s thick skin. She had been huddled in the corner during recess while Sarah and her friends took turns calling her names and throwing things at her. David had come and fought them off. He hadn’t said a word to her after; he’d just smiled and went back to playing with the other boys. He had fit in back then, before they had all grown up to understand politics.

Kari dropped her head back and stared up through the glass ceiling.
He was just a kid then, and here I am, too scared of Thomas to even say what I really think
.
She could see the storm clouds above moving quickly, no longer dropping much rain. Drones flew by every few minutes, most of them carrying goods or materials they were delivering across the city. Many of them were much, much bigger than the hand-size drones she carried with her today.

Kari wanted to think about her next project, or her factory, or the possible civil war and how that would change her life, but all she could think about was David’s betrayed face and the kicked-in-the-stomach look in those green eyes. So, she loaded her simulation, not caring anymore whether Thomas knew that she wasn’t paying attention.

David does have nice eyes, though.

I can’t believe my parents managed to go to school five days a week. I can barely make it through one day, and I have a constant connection to the net, not to mention a computer in my brain.

After the forced exchange with David earlier, Kari had taken a chance by betting that Thomas wouldn’t bully her twice in the same class, so she had tried to make some progress on her simulation. She knew the treasure was inside the encampment. The only problem was that she hadn’t figured out a way to make it inside without getting herself reset. There were gunships, soldiers, mechs, cheetahs, and every other type of military equipment available for her simulations to use. It wasn’t typical for the simulation to guard the treasure so heavily, and it wasn’t typical for her to spend this much time trying to solve a puzzle.