Variant

She held up the notebook and then read. “‘I understand your concern about the slowness of the process. However, it is not in the interests of the experiment to instruct them in tactics. Our goal is to have them develop strategies on their own, not to see how well they can learn existing strategies. The fact that they’re still behaving poorly on the sports field should not be viewed as failure of the experiment, but as valuable data to be studied.’”

Rosa finished reading and looked up. The foyer was silent. When someone finally did speak, it was Curtis, asking her to read the words again.

I didn’t know what to think. This was an experiment, like so many had guessed. And we played paintball so that we could figure out strategies ourselves. But the rest still didn’t make sense. That paper only explained paintball, and paintball was only a tiny portion of our time here.

“What happened to the paper?” Isaiah asked.

Rosa’s eyes fell again. “The school asked for it back.”

All of us were stunned, but it was Isaiah who jumped to his feet. “What? The school actually contacted you?”

She nodded.

“What did they say?”

“They just asked for it back-a message on my computer-and they told me I wouldn’t get detention. I gave it back, but I memorized it. I wrote the words down in the notebook later.”

Carrie finally stood and walked to Rosa. “We won’t let them send you to detention now.”

Mouse wasn’t as compassionate. “Why didn’t you tell anybody?”

Rosa wiped tears away with the back of her hand. She looked up at the security cameras. “They were paying me,” she said, hysterical now. “Millions of points. Anything I wanted.” She opened her bag and dumped the contents into her hand. Out spilled every kind of jewelry I’d ever seen on the catalog-necklaces, rings, bracelets, hair clips. There were at least a hundred pieces, falling from her hand and clattering across the marble floor.

Isaiah jumped to his feet. “You were hiding this all because of that?”

Curtis stood. “Shut up, Isaiah.”

“No,” he snapped. “She knew why we were here, and she didn’t tell us because she wanted a lot of cheap chains.”

Rosa was sitting again, shuddering with tears, and Carrie had her arms around her. Isaiah and Curtis were right in each other’s faces. I decided to step in.

“We still don’t have any leverage,” I said, finally speaking up. “I think this whole thing is ridiculous. The school has all the power here and they know it.” I pointed up at a camera twenty feet away. “They’re listening to everything we’re saying right here. They control everything. They can cut off our food if we don’t follow their rules.”

Isaiah spun to me, jabbing his finger into my chest. “That’s why we’re just asking a question. They know that we know there are androids here-and they know that Rosa told us what she saw-so now we’re asking them a question.”

“What do you think they’re going to do? I’ve known about the androids for days, but it’s not like that made them give me answers. They just tried to shut me up-they tried to bribe me, too.”

All eyes were on me, even Rosa’s.

“They gave me five million points,” I said. “I’ve been trying to stockpile supplies in my room ever since. I don’t have much yet. I haven’t checked today, but what do you want to bet my balance is now zero?”

The room was quiet for a minute.

“But doesn’t that prove it?” Isaiah asked. “They were willing to give you and Rosa special treatment because you knew the truth about them.”

“You’re an idiot,” Oakland said, rolling his eyes. “They were willing to give special treatment, but they’re not anymore. They didn’t want him to tell us.”

“Right,” I said, happy for once that Oakland was around. “I had some leverage because they didn’t want you guys to find out what I knew. But, there’s no leverage anymore.”

“Not unless they know that we’re serious about leaving,” Oakland said. He pointed a finger at Isaiah. “And they’ll always know we’re not serious about leaving, because their cameras are watching all the time, and all they see is the Society-a bunch of pansy Girl Scouts-too scared to do anything.”

Isaiah’s face was tight. “That kind of talk isn’t helping. Are we going to send them a message, or not?”

Oakland stood up. “You can kiss their butts all you want. But if you keep me in this place because you’re too chicken to stand up for yourself, the school’s not going to be the one to kill you.” He smacked the notepad from Isaiah’s hand and it spun onto the floor. Isaiah and Oakland stared at each other for a moment, and then Oakland left.

Mouse stood, and then Curtis and Carrie. Mason, Becky, and I were next, and then most of the student body was on its feet.

“I’m trying to keep everyone alive,” Isaiah said, not moving.

We left, climbing the stairs toward the dorms. By the time we got to the second floor, only a handful of the Society members were still sitting.

Oakland was already gone, and Mouse marched away toward her dorm, her shoes clacking on the hardwood floor.