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“That’s Havoc’s row,” Curtis said. “Stay out of there.”

“Right.”

He pointed the other direction. “And that’s the Society’s place. Don’t let it fool you, though. They’re worse. Anyway, come on.”

We passed two more off-shooting hallways—they looked empty—before Curtis led me into a room just two doors down from the end of the main corridor. He stopped at the small sink and tossed me a washcloth. I pressed it against my nose.

A younger kid sat at a desk. Someone closed the door behind us.

“Glad to have you on board,” Curtis said, sitting on the lower bunk. Neither he nor the young kid seemed to have the same weird fashions I’d seen on the others. They were just wearing the uniform, nothing special. “Sorry about Oakland. The Society usually keeps him out of the way. There’s no way to stop Isaiah from jumping on all the new students—there are just too many Society guys—but they can usually fend Oakland off for a few hours.”

I pulled the rag off my face to see if the bleeding was slowing. It wasn’t, so I reapplied the cloth.

“Listen,” I said. “Thanks for coming in there, but I don’t think I’m going to be sticking around here very long.”

“That’s why you’re perfect for the V’s,” Curtis answered. He pointed at the other kid in the room. “This is Mason, by the way. Your roommate.”

I waved, and then stood and gingerly walked to the sink, my abdomen aching from Oakland’s punches. When I checked in the mirror, my face didn’t look too bad yet. My shirt was covered in blood, but I didn’t see any bruising.

“You’re trying to get out?” I asked.

“Some of us are,” Curtis said. “We don’t know how, but at least we’re not just accepting everything.”

“What’s the
V
stand for?”

“We’re the Variants,” he said. “The other two gangs are playing the game. Havoc—that’s Oakland’s deal—they just want to rule. Get as many points as they can, be in charge, party. The Society thinks that the only way we’re getting out of here is to play by the rules, roll over and do whatever Iceman tells us to. The V’s are everyone else. If you don’t want to be part of that other stuff, we’ll take you.”

“Iceman?”

Curtis laughed a little. “That’s what we call the guy who makes the announcements.”

I ran cold water through the towel, rinsing out the blood, and then put the cool cloth back on my face. “So what is this place?”

“Who knows?” Curtis said. “I’ve been here a year and a half, and none of it makes any sense.”

Mason spoke up. “I think they’re testing us. We’re rats in a maze.”

Curtis nodded. “A lot of guys think that. All the cameras always watching us. And every now and then they make us do weird things, like an experiment. Other guys think they’re training us for something. And some think maybe it really is a prison.”

“You guys do something that would put you in prison?” I’d been in plenty of fights in my life, but I doubted I’d done anything worthy of jail time.

Curtis shrugged. “No one has any ties to home—no friends, no family. With a life like that, not everyone was totally clean before. But I haven’t met anyone who did anything terrible. You?”

I shook my head. “No, just a foster kid.”

“That’s pretty common.” He stood up. “I’ll take care of changing your room assignment. Mason’ll show you around. Don’t worry about going down to the cafeteria tonight—we’ll find some food for you. For now, don’t go anywhere by yourself.” Curtis smiled. “You’ve pissed off Havoc—most new students just ignore Oakland or maybe take a couple hits.”

“I thought fighting was against the rules.” Then again, very little I’d seen in the dorm seemed to follow the rules.

“The rules are weird,” Curtis said with a tired shrug.

“I guess this wasn’t ‘violent fighting.’”

He smiled. “Exactly. Anyway, I’ll be back. Welcome to the V’s.”

He went out the door and closed it behind him.

“Don’t worry, Fish,” Mason said. “Just stay close to the rest of us. The gangs have a truce, and they won’t start anything big.”

I nodded and stood, walking to the small window. I could see a large track behind the school, and miles and miles of forest.

“I’m going to get out of here,” I said.

Mason shrugged. “Everyone says that.”

Chapter Five

I
didn’t leave the room that night, and didn’t talk to anyone else. Curtis came back with lasagna and bread sticks. It was better than I expected—it tasted more like it came from a restaurant than a cafeteria. Mason sat up reading. I think that he expected me to ask him questions, but I stayed quiet in my bunk.

I went through the manual hoping it would have some answers, but it didn’t. It was mostly a retread of what I’d already heard—do this, don’t do that. There were no explanations for why any of the rules existed, and they weren’t even linked to punishments. I got the impression that the others had just figured out the punishments through experience.

Only twenty-four hours ago I’d been in my old foster home, lying awake, imagining how amazing my new life was going to be. Now I was lying awake, wishing I was back there. This wasn’t fair. But since when had life been fair to me?

When dawn came, I was sitting by the window, searching for any sort of escape route. I didn’t see anything promising. Just a couple equipment sheds, a tiny set of bleachers—I had no idea what they’d be for, since we couldn’t compete with other schools—and endless pines.

A girl was down on the track, jogging.

“That’s Mouse,” Mason said, standing behind me. “She’s the girl version of Oakland—the two of them run Havoc.”

“Mouse?” I asked with a halfhearted laugh. She was a tall, tan brunette, wearing short shorts and a sports bra. She looked nothing at all like her nickname.

“Yeah,” Mason said, watching her run. “All of Havoc has stupid names. I guess that’s part of their image. Mouse, Oakland, Skiver, Walnut.” He left the window to go get dressed.

“And that’s supposed to intimidate people?”

“Don’t let it fool you. Mouse is vicious.”

She followed the oval of the track, jogging fast and steady. I wondered if she was training for an escape. I wished it was me down there—I’d run straight for the woods and get out of this place.

“Can anyone go out on the track?” I asked.

“No. Havoc has the contract for groundskeeping. They can get out there most of the time. The Society’s security, so they can go wherever they want. But we can’t.”

“I ought to join the Society for that,” I said, and then wished I hadn’t. I’d just been thinking aloud, but the idea was so good that I wished no one had heard me.

“It won’t work,” Mason said. “Other people have tried it—joined the Society to get on the security team. But those guys are handpicked by Isaiah, and you’d never make it.”

“Why not?”

“You’ve said no to him. People who say no to Isaiah don’t do well in the Society.”

“What contracts do we have?”

Mason smirked. “Janitorial and maintenance. Not very flashy, but it pays pretty well.”

Mouse bent down to retie her shoe and then stood and continued jogging.

I heard Mason open the closet door behind me. “Hey, Fish,” he said. “Your stuff came.”

I stood to look. My school uniforms—seven sets of white shirts, red sweaters, and black pants—were all neatly hung. Below them on the floor were shoes and socks, and a bag of school supplies—pads, pencils, and a very small notebook computer, about the size of a paperback.

“Did someone bring them in during the night?”

“No,” Mason said, pulling a shirt down from his side. “This is how we get the stuff we buy with points. I’m not sure how it works. At night we lock the closet, and in the morning the new stuff is in there. It’s some kind of elevator.”

I walked to the closet and inspected the edges, trying to figure out how it moved. “I was awake all night, I think. I didn’t hear it.”

Mason shrugged. “You can hear it in other rooms. Ours just isn’t as squeaky as some.”

I took a shirt from the hanger. I wanted a shower, but didn’t really want to deal with a communal bathroom right now.

Mason talked as he dressed. “Some kid, like, a year ago, tried to stay in the closet all night. They must have seen him on the cameras because the closet never moved until he got out. He’d try all kinds of things—waiting until the room was totally dark and sneaking in, or having someone stand in front of the camera while he hid.”

I took off my T-shirt and pulled on the uniform. It was heavily starched and stiff.

“They watch us pretty close, huh?”

“Yes, they do,” he said. “That’s why we do dumb stuff like wear these uniforms. Leaving the dorm without your uniform is against the rules. Not going to class is against the rules. Not shaving is against the rules. Everything is.”

I had to get Mason to help me with the tie—I’d never tied one before. He said that was pretty normal for the new guys.

Mason seemed pretty even-tempered. He was a V but didn’t have the same drive I did to get out. I had to wonder if he’d joined the Variants simply because he wasn’t passionate enough to be Society or Havoc.

We skipped going down to breakfast on Mason’s recommendation. He said it might be better if we waited until class to leave the dorms, just to be sure Oakland was already gone. That was fine with me.

Instead, Mason had a box of snack food that he’d bought with points, and he quickly downed a couple of granola bars. He offered me one, but I refused. He’d probably had to go to a lot of trouble to earn the points for the bars, and I didn’t want to owe anything to anyone.

At eight o’clock, as guys were trickling back from the cafeteria, there was a loud chime from the hallway.

“You’re going to love this,” Mason said with a smile as we walked toward the door.

A few of the guys had gathered around a flat-panel TV screen that was mounted on the wall. A man sat behind a desk. He was older—maybe late fifties, I guessed—but his face was lean and muscular. His eyes were cold and dark, and he looked directly into the camera. It felt like he was staring right at me.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see Curtis. “Meet Iceman.”

The man flinched slightly, his eyes flicking from the camera for an instant before looking back at me.

“Students,” he said, his voice sharp and dry. “Another disobedient new arrival day. There were several instances of fighting in the boys’ dormitory, and you can be assured that punishments will be assigned during class this morning. But more disturbing is the continued actions of Curtis Shaw and Caroline Flynn. While their actions do not constitute a legitimate escape attempt, and they will therefore not receive detention, their repeated disregard for the rules will not be tolerated.”

I glanced at Curtis. He still grinned, but the humor was gone from his eyes.

“In class today, you will receive punishments that will . . .” Iceman paused and almost smiled. “. . . 
encourage
you to be more obedient in the future.”

He stared into the camera for a moment more, and then the screen flickered to blue and the day’s schedule appeared.

At five minutes to nine we left the dorm and headed for class. As we walked downstairs I was amazed at how few people we passed. Most of the rooms were empty, and the halls could have fit a lot more students than I saw.

“This place is huge,” I said to Mason. “How many kids are here?”

“Not that many. It’s mostly empty.”

“A hundred? Two hundred?”

“No, not even that many. I think, including you, we’re at something like seventy-four.”

I nodded, but was surprised. I would have expected a lot more in a school this size. Maybe it was easier to control us if the group was small. Or maybe more were on the way.

The classroom was a little tight for the twenty-five of us in there, but it still looked nicer than any schoolroom I’d ever been in. The floors were wood, polished to a glassy shine. The walls were dark-stained wood, and at the front of the room a wide flat-screen TV was mounted instead of a chalkboard.

Mason took a seat next to the wall, and I sat beside him. It was obvious that the gangs stuck with their own even in class. The Society, recognizable by their immaculate uniforms, hair, and faces, took the front two rows of desks. Havoc was at the back, their uniforms augmented with flashy jewelry and drawn-on tattoos. There weren’t any other V’s in the room yet, but from what I’d seen we didn’t try to dress like one another, the way the other gangs did. I guess that made sense for Variants.

“Are you and I really supposed to be in the same class?” I asked. Mason had to have been at least two years younger than I was.

He laughed, tapping absently on his desk as the other students were wandering in. “There’s no freshman, sophomore, junior stuff here. You just go to class. Oh, and the best part—no grades.”

“But there are tests, right? Becky said that.”

“Sure,” Mason said, raising his hand and waving someone over. “But we never see the scores. We never get a report card.”

“Then why does anyone even bother?”

“Points,” he said. “Points and punishments. That’s what makes the school go round. Speaking of . . . ,” Mason said, nodding toward the door.

I looked up to see three girls enter. Becky was in the lead, laughing at something. She scanned the room and when our eyes met she gave me a small wave and smile.

She and her friends sat in the front row, close to the door. I was about to ask Mason about her, but a half dozen more people poured through the door and Mason tapped me on the shoulder and pointed.

“V’s,” he said.

Two girls took the desks in front of me and Mason. They immediately turned and began to talk.

“Did you really get in a fight with Oakland?” the girl in front of me asked. She had big green eyes and red hair that was almost as bright as her sweater.

I nodded and pointed at my lip, which was still a little swollen. “I’ll try not to do it again.”

“Why?” she said with a laugh. “I hope you do. I hope I’m there to see it next time. I’m Jane. And that’s Lily.”

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Benson.”

Jane’s eyes narrowed, but the grin never faded from her face. “That’s a weird name. Who are you named after?”

I shrugged. “No idea.”

“Well, Benson, I’m glad you picked the V’s. We’re not very big, and we need everyone we can get.”

“I don’t plan to stick around very long,” I said, which caused her to laugh again.

“You can’t say stuff like that,” she said, pretending to be scandalized. “What if the Society hears you?”

Maybe I needed to revise my assessment of the school. Jane seemed happy—truly happy. For some reason, until sitting here in class, I hadn’t really contemplated getting to know any girls in this weird prison of a school.

“Where are you from, Jane?”

“Baltimore. Hang on—time for class. Did they tell you about class?”

I shook my head. “Not really.”

“They don’t teach us reading and writing.” She smirked, and then turned back to face forward.

The students quieted down very quickly, much more so than in my schools back home. A girl stood up at the front of the class—she’d been sitting in the desk next to Becky. Her blond hair was pulled into a tight bun and her severe makeup made her skin almost as white as her teeth.

“Welcome to class,” she said, a little overly enthusiastic. “We’re very pleased to have a new student this morning. Benson, could you stand up and introduce yourself?”

I glanced over at Mason, who smiled and shrugged.

“I’m Benson Fisher,” I said. “From Pittsburgh. I’m seventeen. And I think it’s absolute bullcrap that you guys are all sitting here, pretending like nothing’s wrong.”

There were murmurs in the class as I sat back down, followed by a few giggles. Jane turned back and gave me an approving nod. The girl at the front of the class didn’t seem fazed at all. Becky faced straight ahead, motionless.

“Welcome, Benson,” she said. “I know you’ll fit right in.” She opened her minicomputer. “My name is Laura, and I’m the teaching assistant in this class. Mason, could you please help Benson out today?”

Mason gave a sarcastic salute.

“Thank you. Before we begin, I just need to announce today’s punishments.” Laura scanned the classroom, glancing slowly back and forth between her computer screen and the students in the desks. “Ah. Skiver. Fighting. No food today.”

Skiver, sitting against the back wall, swore and punched his desk. I looked back at Laura just in time to miss what Skiver did next, but her white face went red, and she stumbled over her next few words.

“It, uh, it looks . . . No one else in here is on the punishment list. Well done. Our lesson today is a little departure from what we’ve been studying, but you were all doing so well with Materials Science that I guess they’ve decided we’re ready to move on. Today we’ll be talking about aesthetics.”

Jane and Lily exchanged a look. Lily rolled her eyes.

“Aesthetics,” Laura said, reading from her computer, “is the philosophy that deals with the study of beauty. In this course we will be addressing such questions as ‘What is art?’ and ‘What is beauty?’”

Mason leaned over to me and whispered, “It’s something new every couple of weeks. Weird junk, like this. At least Materials Science had explosions.”

Class seemed to last forever. Laura only spoke for a few minutes, and then she handed out a test that was supposed to gauge our knowledge on the subject. I didn’t know a single answer. After the test we watched a video that was nothing but an endless slideshow of statues, vases, and paintings, all with a monotone British guy speaking in the background. A handful of the students seemed to be listening very attentively, but most were just trying to stay awake. Even Laura, who had sat down in the desk next to Becky, seemed bored.

I spent most of the class staring at the back of Jane’s head, at her red hair that hung down past her shoulders and touched my desk.

This school wasn’t what I wanted or expected, but I had to admit that parts of it were better than back home. I’d sat through a lot of boring classes before, in filthy classrooms that were either blazing hot or freezing cold. I’d watched kids pass drugs around while the teacher’s back was turned. And I’d spent many days wishing I could afford to eat at the cafeteria.

I adjusted the notebook on my desk, purposely sliding it so that I could “accidentally” touch Jane’s hair with the tips of my fingers.