Variant

He gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes in what was probably supposed to be a threatening face. “You got me out of bed for that?” Skiver acted tougher than his size warranted, but ever since the fight on our first day he’d taunted me as though he’d beat me in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

“I realize that it’s a long way from the bed to the door,” I said. “And I apologize.”

He stared back at me, with more of his semi-threatening expressions.

I pointed to the chair. “If you want, you could sit and catch your breath.”

Skiver opened his mouth, but Oakland spoke. “What’s the question?”

“How long have you guys been here?”

“Why do you care?” Skiver snapped.

“You already asked me that,” I said calmly, watching Oakland.

He looked back at me, thinking. Skiver seemed to be confused as to why he wasn’t hitting something.

I decided to ease the tension. “I’m trying to figure something out about this stupid place,” I said. “But I need to talk to the people who’ve been here the longest.”

Oakland stared at me for a long time, and then finally spoke. “Jane was the oldest, wasn’t she?” His words weren’t sympathizing, but they weren’t his normal jerk self, either. It was a simple statement.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“About a year and nine months,” Oakland said. “I think. Not totally sure. Skiver’s less than a year.”

Skiver looked confused that Oakland would help me and stared as I wrote the dates down in my notebook.

“Thanks, guys,” I said.

As I was turning to leave, Skiver spoke. “Nice job taking care of your girl, Fisher.”

I paused, rage building up in my chest. Taking a deep breath, I looked back at Oakland. I stared at him long enough for Skiver to wonder what was going on, so that he looked back, too. Then I sucker punched Skiver in the jaw.

He dropped straight to the floor. Oakland’s eyes met mine for a moment, paused, and then he turned back at his computer.

By the end of the night, I had gotten answers from almost all the guys. Two Society guys refused to answer, saying that they needed to ask Isaiah before they helped me. I wanted to hit them, too.

Isaiah didn’t answer either, but I was able to find out about him from several others. Not surprisingly, he was one of the oldest. I knew it. He had to be an android.

Over the next two days I was able to gather the information from the girls, in class and in the cafeteria. In the end, I found that there were five of them who had arrived at school together, including Isaiah. They all claimed to have been in the school for just over two years, and they remembered driving in together in a van. In addition to Isaiah, there was another Society kid, Raymond, and two girls from Havoc-Mouse and Tiny. And Rosa, one of the V’s.

I didn’t know Rosa very well. She was one of the oldest girls. She had the best paintball gun. She had asthma. She didn’t seem to go out of her way to talk to people.

I was going to have to keep an eye on her.

Of course, the entire list was a guess. It was still all based on the assumption that the androids came first. And it was based on the even greater assumption that there were more than just Jane.

That night, lying in bed, I wanted to say something to Mason. Based on my chart, he was among the newer half of the students. Hopefully that meant he wasn’t part of… whatever this all was.

It was dark, and I could hear him in the bunk above me, quietly tapping on his minicomputer.

“Hey,” I said.

He yawned. “What’s up?”

I paused. Dim light glowed from his screen, and it reflected off the smooth lens of the security camera in the corner.

“Nothing, I guess,” I said.

“’Kay.”

It would have to wait until we were outside, away from the microphones.

I got up from my bed, too awake to sleep, and took my computer from the closet. The contracts were coming up for renewal again soon, and I was curious about the medical one. There had been talk that the Society might try to take it back from us. The gangs were supposed to get together to discuss it soon. It sounded like a silly thing to fight over to me, but I’d heard that the contracts disputes often got violent-that’s why everything had been settled with a truce.

I read the medical requirements, but there wasn’t much of interest there. The points were relatively low, compared with the big contracts like groundskeeping and the cafeteria-the two huge ones that Havoc owned.

Bored, I toggled over to the purchase screens and looked at what new items were being offered. It wasn’t much-a few new kinds of snacks, a few new outfits (all for girls), and a new video game.

The paintball stuff was enticing-page after page of camouflage clothing, and eight different kinds of ghillie suits. There was even a white-and-gray one, for when the snow started to fall. Looking at the paintball pages, I wanted one of everything-not because I wanted to excel in paintball, but because escape would be so much easier if I could do it in full camo.