Variant

Jane led me to the cafeteria, which was down on the first floor, at the back of the school. I watched the ceilings while we walked and counted at least thirty-two cameras in the four minutes it took to get there. I didn’t see the microphones she was talking about, but I didn’t doubt her.

The others that we saw in the hall had lost any of the anger I’d seen in them when I arrived. No one was protesting conditions. No one was trying to escape. It looked almost the same as any other school I’d ever been in-some talking, some laughing, some flirting. I wondered how long it took before they’d given up. A month? A year?

The line for lunch was backed all the way out into the hall. Jane and I took our place at the end.

“The food here isn’t bad,” she said. “Havoc has the contract because food duty offers a ton of points. But part of their points is based on how we rate them. So, they have to make it good.”

“How long have you been here?” I said, leaning back against the wall and watching her. Jane had a very light sprinkling of faded freckles on her nose and cheeks.

“Oh, I was one of the first,” she said. She folded her arms across her chest.

“How long was that?”

“Two and a half years, I think. I don’t keep track anymore.”

“How many people were here then?”

She shook her head, her smile disappearing. “Not many. Fifteen. They’re all gone now.”

The line moved forward a few feet.

“Gone where?”

Her voice hushed, and she absently ran her finger along the wood panels on the wall. “Detention, most of them. No one got out, if that’s what you mean. People used to try harder to escape back then.”

A girl with black hair and a round face ran up next to Jane, giving me a quick glance before speaking rapidly in hushed tones. “Did you hear about the punishments?”

Before Jane had a chance to reply, the girl continued, “Curtis and Carrie got no food all day and hard labor.”

“What?” Jane looked stunned. “They never do that. Not together.”

“I know,” the girl said. “I don’t know what it is, but Dylan took them outside.”

Jane shook her head, and the round-faced girl hurried off to spread the story.

“Is that for running after the car?” I asked.

Jane nodded. “The punishments get worse every time. I keep telling Carrie to stop.”

I wanted to continue talking, to press her for details, but she’d turned away slightly, not looking at me anymore.

After a few moments we turned the corner and entered the cafeteria. I’d been expecting the usual arrangement-huge pans of sloppy food under sneeze guards, being dished up by bored people with ice-cream scoops. Instead, I found a wall with hundreds of tiny doors. It almost looked like rows of mailboxes in the post office, except that these boxes had small windows and lights.

Jane handed me a tray. “You get one main course, one side, and one drink. It scans the chip in your watch.” She was smiling, but looked tired and lost in thought.

I peered in the little windows and saw gorgeous plates of food: enchiladas, fried chicken, lasagna, and half a dozen other things. As others opened the little doors the smells of the kitchen poured out.

I tried to look through the doors to the kitchen behind but couldn’t see anything.

Jane opened one and pulled out a salad, heaped with chicken and blue cheese.

“Not bad, huh?” she said. “It tastes as good as it looks.”

I finally chose a plate of fettuccine Alfredo. I’d only ever had it as a frozen dinner, but even then it was good. A tiny display above the window lit up as I opened it and the words benson fisher, 1 entree scrolled across.

I put the plate on my lunch tray and then followed Jane to the side dishes.

“When I heard that Havoc ran the cafeteria I’d thought they would spit in my food or something.”

“They probably would if they could see who was taking it,” she said, standing on the tips of her toes to look in a high window.

I opened a door and took a small plate holding two bread sticks. “They don’t seem worried about breaking rules.”

“A lot of people break rules,” she said. “But some of the rules are more serious than others. If you try to escape, you’ll get detention. On the other hand, if you don’t wear your uniform, your gang will just lose points.”

She picked a bowl of fruit and put it on her tray, and then motioned with her head for me to follow her. Around the next corner was a row of vending machines with drinks.

“The gang will lose the points?” I asked.

“Yep,” she said. “They do that so that the gangs will keep their members in line. If one of the V guys wasn’t shaving, then the rest of us would tell him he has to. Seriously, the school has this all figured out. They make us obey.” She popped a crouton in her mouth.

“I saw that shaving rule,” I said with a forced laugh. “Do girls have that one, too?”

“Worse than a rule.” Jane grinned and gestured to her legs. “We have to wear skirts. Every day.”