Variant

As 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.”