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“A little, but not really.”

“Anyone in here a hacker?”

He laughed tiredly. “People have been trying that for as long as I’ve been here. Oakland looked into it. He knows computers. He said there’s no consistent connection. The network is only up and running for a few seconds a day—that’s when the school downloads our purchases and records our bids. He says there’s just not enough time to hack it.”

“Oakland?”

“He’s not as dumb as he looks.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

I browsed through the contracts. Each one listed the chores to do, the requirements to fulfill, and each showed the current bid. As usual, none of the gangs’ bids were contested. They were all at the max points’ limit. I could have entered one if I wanted to, like everyone used to do. I thought about doing it to make Havoc mad, but then all of the V’s would be stuck with extra work.

I toggled back to the items for sale. The main page featured a wide array of dresses and a few suits.

Who was crazier? The school, who was putting us through all of this, or the students who were spending their hard-earned points on silk gowns, cummerbunds, bow ties, and flowers?

Chapter Ten

A
s much as I was trying to fight it, I was getting more used to school. Every morning I’d get up, listen to Iceman, shower, and get dressed. That TV screen ruled our life—it told us where to be, when to be there, and what to wear. It had begun showing a countdown to the dance, too, which still struck me as ridiculous.

In class we finished our section on aesthetics—it had only lasted a week—and Laura moved us into a riveting course on Field Surveying Techniques. Whoever was choosing the classes here seemed to be doing it at random. When I was back in a real school, I’d taken enough biology and chemistry to learn the scientific method and the testing of hypotheses. If someone really was watching us on those security cameras, experimenting on us like rats in a cage, the study was screwed up. Nothing they were doing could have been remotely scientific. There were too many variables.

Jane turned to me as class was dismissed. We’d spent the last hour looking at deconstructed diagrams of the optical theodolite, and Jane could barely keep her eyes open. “This almost makes me wish I was back studying the definition of beauty.”

She stood up and I followed her to the door. “I’d take this over philosophy any day.” I handed my aesthetics textbook to Laura and took the new one.
Applied Field Surveying
. “At least this is a practical skill.”

Jane walked at my side in the hall. “There are a lot of practical skills that I never have any intention of practicing. Are you really going to use field surveying?”

I laughed. “When I get out of here, I’m going to open a field surveying business.”

Jane hooked her arm through mine. “We could start it together—half surveying, half aesthetics.”

“We’ll make a billion dollars.”

I laughed. I still didn’t know quite what to make of Jane. We hung out almost all the time, and it wasn’t at all uncommon for her to put her arm in mine or take my hand. And while I was definitely not complaining, I had no idea if it was more than friendly.

All the cultural norms of dating were foreign to me—when should you hold hands? When should you kiss? When were you officially a couple? But those norms had to be even more foreign to her, since she’d been in this school almost her entire teenage life.

The dance was tomorrow night. Maybe that would shed a little light on things.

When we got to the cafeteria, Mouse was standing at the front of the line, arranging a stack of paper boxes and brown sacks on a table.

I peered down at the handwritten label on one of the boxes. “What’s this?”

Mouse picked up the one I was looking at and shoved it toward me. “Schedule changed. Eat it up in your room.”

Jane picked up a bag. “What’s the new schedule?”

“Paintball,” Mouse said. She winked at me. “Maybe we’ll meet again out there, Fisher.”

“I sure hope so.”

We left the table and I followed Jane down the hall. A TV screen, mounted high on the wall above the drinking fountain, showed the change of plans. No afternoon classes, just paintball. We had only forty-five minutes to change and get out there.

Jane sighed. “I already didn’t have enough time today.” She and Carrie had volunteered to be in charge of decorating for the dance.

“We’ll have plenty of time,” I said. “I can stay up and help.”

She scrunched up her face and looked back at the TV. “It’s going to be a late night.”

“I don’t have anywhere to be in the morning. I can sleep through field surveying tomorrow.”

Jane laughed. “I almost slept through it today.”

We headed for the stairs.

She held up her fingers at me like a gun. “Try not to get shot a hundred times today. I don’t want to hear you whining all night.”

“I only get shot so you’ll come heal me.”

I ate my lunch—a chicken sandwich and coleslaw—at my desk while Mason got dressed. I still had my crummy, non-camouflaged sweats, but I was determined that would not stop me from playing better. Lily and Mason had taught me a little more about tactics, and I hoped to be able to try them out.

“Check this out,” Mason said, tossing me a heavy plastic tube. It was about three inches long, and I saw it was actually two canisters taped together and slid inside a larger cylinder.

“I bought two of those after the last game,” he said. “Just got ’em this morning. Paintball grenades.”

“You just throw it and it explodes?”

“No, they’re pressurized. One canister is air and the other’s paint. Pull the pin, throw it, and it’ll spin around and spray. Wipe out everyone in a bunker.”

I smiled and tossed it back to him. “Then I hope we’re attacking bunkers.”

“They only came up for sale this month. I bet the other gangs have some, too.”

“Is it just a one-shot thing? That’s got to be pricey.”

“You can refill the paint, and buy new air cartridges.” Mason walked to the door. “I’ve got to find Lily before the game. Do you think you can find your way out to the field by yourself?”

“Is it the same one?”

“No, other side of the school. Just hurry and you’ll be able to follow somebody.”

I dressed quickly, picturing the game in my mind. Maybe the school was trying to train us to be soldiers and maybe it wasn’t, but I didn’t care—I felt like paintball was helping me prepare for escape. I was learning how to move silently through the forest, how to hide, how to watch for attackers. Maybe that would come in handy soon. I hoped it would.

I was only four or five minutes behind Mason, but most of the school was already empty. I could hear some voices down the Society’s corridor, but I didn’t see anyone until I got all the way downstairs.

“Hey, Bense!” Becky was coming out of her office as I passed. She was dressed for the game, too, though she didn’t seem to be as enthusiastic about it as some. She wore camouflage, but just the most basic, cheap stuff you could buy, and she hadn’t upgraded her gun. That was one of the first things anyone did. Her hair was still perfectly styled, and she held her mask in her hand as she walked.

“Hey,” I said. “You heading outside?”

“Now I am,” she said with a huge smile. Huge smiles were Becky’s default. “Just had to finish up a couple quick things.”

We walked out the front doors and down the steps. There were a few people on the edge of the forest, but not many. I checked my watch to make sure we weren’t late. We still had ten minutes.

“It’s cold today,” she said.

“If I was back home it’d be snowing.”

“Do you miss the snow?”

I shrugged. “It’s better than here. But I bet you have hellish summers.”

Becky slung her gun over her shoulder. She hadn’t removed the strap—even I had done that.

“It’s not too bad, really. We are in the mountains, after all.”

I had nothing against Becky, but it felt strange talking to her anywhere other than in her office. The Society didn’t like me and Isaiah probably wouldn’t want us chatting. Then again, maybe Becky was still trying to recruit me. Maybe her talking to me was an assignment.

“Are you excited for the dance?” she asked.

“I guess. Seems a little ridiculous, though. Don’t you think?”

She frowned. “I think it’s nice. We’re trapped here. They could just as well not let us have any fun.”

“Maybe. But maybe if things were worse more people would be trying to escape.”

Becky didn’t answer. We finished crossing the lawn and entered the edge of the forest. I could see the other students gathered together a hundred yards farther in.

“Then I’m even more glad we’re having a dance,” Becky finally said.

I started to laugh, but she quickened her pace, hurrying off toward where the Society was gathered.

Isaiah was already standing up on a rock when I arrived. He tore open the envelope.

“The scenario is Fly the Flag,” he read. “Each team has its own flag. You have to take it to the pole in the center of the field, raise it, and defend it for five minutes.”

“Those grenades will come in handy,” I whispered to Mason. “Let them get there first, blow ’em away.”

“I don’t know, man,” he said. “This field is tough. That flagpole is up on a little hill, and there’s no good cover to get up there.”

“Variants versus the Society,” Isaiah continued. “Havoc will be refs. Each team gets a medic.”

Jane raised her hand again and got the medic badge. Dylan got it for the Society. I hoped I’d get a chance to shoot him. Then again, the list of people I
didn’t
want to shoot seemed to get shorter all the time.

Isaiah continued, “The winners of today’s game will get double points for all their contracts this week. The losers will get no points, but will still be required to fulfill their contracts.” There were groans from both sides that quickly turned into taunts.

“Game starts in fifteen minutes,” Isaiah said, and stepped down from the rock, handing the bullhorn to Oakland. I still didn’t like the idea of Havoc as the refs. I wouldn’t be surprised if they shot me themselves.

Curtis gathered us as we watched the Society hike off toward the other end of the field.

“Okay,” he said, keeping his voice low. “We worked something out for this scenario, and I like it. When the whistle blows, the Society’s going to charge the flag—everyone always does. So this time we’re going to do the same thing, except it’ll be a fake.” He pointed to Joel, one of the younger squad leaders. “Joel, you guys are fast. You, Gabby, and Tapti charge that hill as soon as the whistle blows. I mean, run your butts off. The rest of us are going to get right on the perimeter ribbons—all of us—and run as fast as we can for their end. Joel’s squad will slow the Society from getting on the hill, and then the rest of us will hit them from behind.”

Joel nodded. “So we stay up there till we’re dead?”

“Yes,” Curtis said, and then laughed. “But it’ll be a noble death.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” Joel asked. “What if we get pushed off and they get up there?”

“If that happens then we’ll try to hit it from three sides—Lily from the right, me from the back, and Hector from the left. Got it?” He checked his watch. “Jane, you’re with us.”

She nodded, and we broke the huddle, heading to the taped-off area. Lily, Mason, and I moved to the far right and waited at the ribbon.

Lily pulled her mask down over her face, her hair pulled into a ponytail behind. She turned to me. “You’re pretty fast, aren’t you?”

“Not fast enough to not get shot,” I said, adjusting my own mask.

She knelt down and grabbed a handful of moist mud from the base of a pine tree. “You sent your clothes to the wash,” she said simply, and then began wiping the soil on my arms.

I followed her lead, stooping to get more dirt. “I thought washing clothes was a good thing. Besides, they were splattered with red and blue paint. Not exactly camouflage.” Rubbing it into the cotton sweats, I wondered whether it would actually do any good. The tan was so light it almost glowed.

“Still better than bright and clean,” she said. “What time is it?”

I looked at my watch. “Two minutes.”

“When we start running, just go as fast as you can, but stay at least twenty feet behind me. If I get too far ahead, try to catch up once I stop.”

“Okay.”

The whistle blew, and Lily took off like a rabbit, darting between the trees and bushes. She was wearing some kind of pack under her ghillie suit—maybe tied around her waist—but it didn’t slow her down. I wondered whether she’d bought a bunch of the paint grenades, too. I charged on behind her, but she was easily faster than Mason or me.

To my left I could see Joel, Gabby, and Tapti running straight up the middle, the flag flapping in Gabby’s hand. None of them had their guns raised—it was a full-on sprint.

This field wasn’t as big as the other, and it wasn’t long before I saw the hill. I wanted to watch and see if our squad made it up, but my path was getting rockier and I was having trouble keeping an eye on Lily. Suddenly she dived to the ground. I dropped into a crouch and kept running, my gun ready.

I didn’t see anyone as I took up a position behind her. Mason knelt down next to me, panting.

“Man, she’s fast,” I said, trying to calm my own breathing.

“Best player in the V’s,” he said, his gun pointed off toward her. “Probably the whole school.”

“She been doing this a long time? Or just naturally good?”

He laughed quietly, his eyes still on the forest in front of us. “Works on it constantly. Always practicing. I bet this plan we’re using is something she came up with.”

“She really wants to be the super soldier, huh?”

Mason snorted. “Something like that.”

There was shooting somewhere.

The bullhorn sounded. “The V’s have raised their flag. The timer starts now.”

Lily looked back at me and motioned to follow her. She lifted into a low crouch and began slowly creeping left. I did the same.

Almost immediately she dropped to her knees, ducking behind a tree. Shots hissed, popping into the ground all around her. Mason was firing behind me, but I couldn’t tell what he was shooting at.

Lily was pinned. I met her eyes and she gestured toward her attacker, but her hand signals were too vague.

I watched Mason’s shots, trying to trace them to the Society sniper, but I finally figured he was firing blind.

Everything fell silent. Lily peeked around the tree and paint splattered instantly into the trunk and she had to hide again.

Catching Lily’s attention, I held up my hand, wishing that I knew sign language. Five fingers, four, three, two . . .

I jumped from my spot, running to the left and diving for a tall bush. The sniper’s paint followed me, crashing through the foliage, but there was no hit. I couldn’t watch Lily—I was just trying to move fast—but in my peripheral vision I saw her turn and fire.

“Hit!” someone called out. “Medic!”

The distraction had worked. Lily got him.

I expected her to form another ambush around the hit sniper—I wanted to wait for Dylan—but she was in a hurry. She gave me a thumbs-up and then motioned for me and Mason to follow her.

We moved toward the hill slowly and carefully. I was trying to walk the way Lily had taught me—stepping with the side of the foot and heel and rolling onto the flat of my foot. It was a lot quieter.