Scored (11 page)

“Hi,” Imani said to it, then paused, enslaved by the conventions of dialogue. “I guess I don’t have to introduce myself because you already know who I am, right? I’m Imani LeMonde?” She knew something was tracking her words, something far away in a central processing station, some nonphysical thing made of ones and zeroes. It read her lips and formed a judgment sounder than any she could form. “So I’m here to confess something I’m about to do,” she said. “And I want to be completely honest with you. I’m going to be spending time with an unscored named Diego Landis. It’s not because I like him or anything. I actually find him …” Imani’s gaze drifted upward as she searched for the right words.
“Annoying,” she said. “And foulmouthed. So there will be swearing. I mean,
I
won’t be swearing, but he will. Anyway, my original reason for doing this was research for a paper. There’s a scholarship given by the Otis Institute, which I’m sure you can look up or whatever. And then I learned that Diego is the son of a creeper lawyer who has been suing the school. So I thought that I could use my connection with Diego to learn about his mother’s plans to fight … well, to fight
you
.”

Imani stared at the small black ball, which seemed suddenly fragile.

“They want to destroy you,” she said, “because they don’t believe in upward mobility and all the things you’ve promised.” She swallowed, knowing the software would process the gesture according to its own superior logic. “But I do,” she said.

She wasn’t gaming. She
did
believe in the things the score promised. At least, she thought she did. She’d never found any reason
not
to believe in them.

When she climbed down from the stone elephant, she came face to face with an armless mermaid. The pitted thing had been through blizzards, heat waves, and callous movers only to wind up in that parking lot in Somerton. Still, as it gazed beyond the pizza shop toward the ocean, which would always elude it, somehow it managed to look hopeful.

THE NEXT DAY
, Imani waited until the break before final period, then slipped a note into Diego’s locker with an invitation to meet her in person. A junior 80 saw her and would probably rat her out for it. But it wouldn’t matter, because Imani had already ratted herself out.

That afternoon, a few hours after high tide, Imani took Frankenwhaler up the river to a small strip of beach belonging to the Wentworths, a couple who went bowling with her parents once a week. Their ramshackle house was obscured by overgrown trees that were rapidly swallowing what was left of their beach. A three-wheeled ATV sat catty-corner to a shredded badminton net, and strewn about like seaweed was an assortment of plastic toys that belonged to their grandchild.

It was cool and overcast, no shadows anywhere, the sky a
uniform gray. Imani pulled on a sweater and waited. It felt strange to be picking up someone other than Cady. She wondered if Cady missed their afternoons on the river or if she preferred spending her time with Parker.

In the distance, she heard a low hum. It was nothing like Frankenscooter’s, but Imani could feel her heart beat anyway. As the sound grew, she tidied up the boat, folding the blanket and wiping down the bench. Eventually, a black scooter appeared between two trees, jolted over a big root, then skidded onto the sand. Without stopping, it came across the beach, swerved around two baby dolls, then stopped abruptly next to the ATV.

Diego didn’t dismount right away. He took in the surroundings first, hidden behind the visor of his black helmet. “So you have your own boat,” he said finally. “Fancy.”

Imani stepped out and dragged the boat sideways onto the beach. “Get in.”

Diego stowed his helmet in his trunk, then climbed into Imani’s boat and sat on the rear bench, right by the motor. Imani looked at him, confused, but he stared back innocently.

“Uh, I think
I’ll
drive,” Imani said.

“Oh, sorry.” Diego shifted to the middle bench.

“Have you ever been on a boat?” Imani asked, making no effort to keep the condescension out of her tone.

“Once or twice,” he said, refusing to acknowledge her condescension. “You’re not going to drown me, are you?” He grinned broadly.

Imani absorbed his smile but remained neutral. “We’ll see.”
She pushed the boat off the sand and jumped gracefully into position at the motor, a move she had perfected.

“Impressive,” Diego said with a trace of sarcasm.

Imani didn’t respond.

She took it slow through the inlet that led from the Wentworths’ beach. Then, once in the river, she sped up and carved into a hard bend. Diego clung to the bench, and Imani noticed with satisfaction that his knuckles were white.
What a land monkey
, she thought.

As the boat emerged from the river into the turbulent channel, Diego twisted around to face her, his hands never leaving the bench. “Where are you taking me?”

Imani pointed to a low sandy mound ahead and to the left of them.

“Is that Chauncey Beach?” he shouted over the motor.

“Back side!” Imani shouted back. “Hold on.” She sped up and headed straight for the beach, observing with pleasure the tension that rose through Diego’s body as they accelerated. When his shoulders reached his ears, she cut the motor and let momentum and an incoming wave carry them toward the shore.

Diego’s body relaxed gradually, and he turned to face her, his expression accusing.

“Safe and sound,” she said.

“You’re fucking nuts.”

“You need a thesaurus.”

When they hit sand, Imani gestured for Diego to get out, then watched in amusement as he angled his long legs over the bow with a little jump to avoid getting his boots wet. He was
taller and leaner in his slim black jeans than she’d previously noticed. He looked out of place on the beach. Imani hopped out onto the damp sand and dragged the boat about eight feet from the waterline.

“Is it safe?” he asked.

Imani glanced around the empty beach. “From what? Clams?”

“From the tide, of course.”

“I know the tides.” Imani dropped the rope, then headed off down the shoreline.

Diego caught up with her, and they walked in silence for a while, with seagulls swooping and cawing overhead. The birds seemed unusually noisy, as if registering their suspicion of this stranger in black who clearly didn’t belong there. Diego Landis belonged inside, Imani thought, with a book in his hands and a smug expression on his face. He belonged at Rita Mae’s.

After a hundred yards, they came to a bend, around which was a clear view of the Atlantic. Imani stopped and stared into the infinite blue, feeling, as always, the pull of the tides. Her sneakers sank gently into the pale sand.

Diego stopped a few feet away and stared outward too, though whether that expanse of blue meant anything to him, Imani couldn’t tell. The wind blew his hair straight across his face, forcing him to tuck it tightly behind his ears. After a few seconds, the wind won anyway. Imani dug out the rubber band she usually kept for Cady and held it out to him, but he shook his head.

“So where do we start?” he asked.

“I think you had some issues with my answers?” Imani sat in the cool dry sand, facing the water.

“Yes, I did, actually.” He sat and pulled a piece of paper from his pocket.
“Whereas the unscored must merely accept what they are and muddle through life permanently flawed,”
he read,
“the scored receive monthly feedback from an impartial and highly intelligent source, which empowers us to change.”

“Wait.” Imani looked at the neatly typed page. “You retyped all my answers?”

“No. Just the stupid ones,” he said. “What makes you think the unscored can’t change? Just because we don’t have a software program judging us? We have parents. We get grades. We
are
equipped with brains. Remember those? We can figure out our flaws on our own if we want to.”

“But where’s your incentive to change?” Imani asked.

“Maybe some of us don’t want to change,” he said.

“Then I guess you go through life permanently flawed, like I said.”

“Unlike you,” he said. “Who get to—hold on—” He read from the piece of paper again.
“Achieve the contentedness of constant self-improvement.”
He looked at Imani directly. “Jesus, are you even aware of how creepy that sounds?”

Imani had merely written out one of Score Corp’s well-known slogans. “What’s creepy about it?” she asked.

“For starters, the fact that it sounds like doublespeak?”

“What’s doublespeak?”

He laughed sharply. “Unbelievable!” he said. “They introduce this massive mind control program; then they remove all
references to mind control from the curriculum.
1984
used to be required reading. Did you know that?”

“Yeah, I’ve read that,” Imani said, even though it wasn’t true.

“So you
do
know what doublespeak is, then,” he challenged.

She was beginning to feel outmatched but didn’t want him to know that. “I’ve heard of it,” she said.

“Right. So don’t you think it’s weird that we’re living in Orwell’s nightmare and we don’t even read his book anymore?”

Imani knew she couldn’t compete with Diego on the subject of a book she’d never read, so she tried to put the matter to rest. “Who cares about some stupid book?” she said. “All I know is I’m not living in anyone’s nightmare.”

“Yes, you are,” Diego said. “The only thing Orwell got wrong was the bad guy. It’s not the government. It’s a corporation. A business, i.e., people making money.
A lot
of money. Do you even know about the history of Score Corp? Do you know about the controversy surrounding Sherry Potter’s disappearance? Do you know about the lost interview?”

“Do you want me to answer any of these questions? Or are you just talking to yourself? Because if you’d rather talk to yourself, I’ll go get my clam fork.”

“Your
clam fork
?” Diego leaned forward and laughed. “What are you, a
clamdigger
?” His laughter expanded for a few seconds, then stopped suddenly like a choked motor. “Oh,” he said.

Imani could see the dots connecting for him:
She has a boat
, he was thinking.
She knows the tides. Holy f %*#, she
is
a clamdigger!

Diego reddened, and Imani knew she could have rescued
him with some kind of assurance, some casual display of magnanimity, but why would she do that when she could luxuriate in his discomfort? It was the perfect counterstrike to his previous crack about that book. How brilliant, she thought, that this intellectual
giant
with his holier-than-thou principles was a garden variety elitist.

“S-s-sorry …,” Diego stammered eventually. “I didn’t mean to imply that … I mean, it’s totally cool if you’re a—”

“Save it,” Imani said. “Just remember that I’m the one with the boat.”

Diego’s eyes widened. If Imani left him, he’d have to walk ten miles to the front side of Chauncey Beach, then another two to the nearest road, or attempt a shortcut through the unmarked dunes. Imani let him consider those options for a while. When he’d digested them, she drew a short line in the sand. “Round one to Imani LeMonde.”

“Conceded.” He let his left eye linger on hers, though whether it was to acknowledge his defeat or to demonstrate the magnanimity she had lacked, Imani couldn’t tell. At any rate, the wind quickly made a shroud of his hair and he was forced to tuck it behind his ears again.

“So you were saying?” Imani began.

“Huh?”

“Some prattle about Sherry Potter’s disappearance?”

“Oh, right. The lost interview. Do you know about it?”

Imani didn’t.

“Okay,” he said. “You know who Sherry Potter is, right?”

“Inventor of the score. With her husband, Nathan Klein.”

“Right,” he said. “So Sherry Potter gave one last interview before she disappeared. One interview where she completely discredited everything she and her husband did.”

“I’ve never heard of that.”

“It was destroyed,” Diego said. “It never aired. And she hasn’t been heard from since.”

“How do you know it’s real?”

“Search it,” he said.

“Why?” Imani asked.

“Because if I were you,
that’s
what I’d write my paper on.”

“How is that ‘opposing the score’?”

Diego rolled his eyes as if Imani were the thickest person in the universe. “Because Sherry Potter obviously believed her invention was a crime against humanity,” he said. “Maybe you should find out why.”

“Hmm,” Imani said. She was aware of Sherry Potter’s disappearance and of the rumors of her rift with Nathan Klein. It was potentially fertile ground for a paper opposing the score. “I’ll think about it,” she said. “In the meantime, I have some issues with
your
answers.”

“I assumed you would.” Diego smiled in anticipation.

“I didn’t retype them because I have a life, but I recall you saying something about antisocial behavior being the only behavior worth defending?”

“Yeah,” he said. “And just so you know, I retyped
your
answers because you have the handwriting of a psychopath.”

Imani opened her mouth to object but ultimately couldn’t. It was true. Her handwriting was an abomination. She had no
patience for penmanship. She needed to record at the speed of thought and could type at lightning speed but hated even the feel of a pen in her hand. “Well, shouldn’t you be defending my handwriting, then?”

“It’s not antisocial,” he said. “It’s just sloppy.”

“Well, that’s why we have computers.”

“Yeah. I’m sure that’s why they were invented.”

The wind, which seemed to have it in for Diego, plastered his hair across his face in a most undignified manner. Imani dug the rubber band out of her pocket and forced it into his hand. Reluctantly, he pulled his hair into a short ponytail. Without the curtain of hair, he looked different to Imani: angular and raw.

“What?” he said. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Imani turned away and looked at the blue horizon, but with her peripheral vision she could see Diego grinning. He seemed to think he was winning whatever game they were playing. He was as sure of himself there at the back side of Chauncey Beach as he was in the classroom or at Rita Mae’s. Where did that confidence come from? Was it the result of being rich, of knowing that no matter what you did or said, the world would open up for you? And what were his true motives toward Imani? Surely he didn’t need that scholarship. Was he planning to turn her into a case study, as Ms. Wheeler suggested? Or was he merely toying with her? Whatever his motives, Imani felt compelled now to beat him. Whether it was an argument about some book or the scholarship itself, she wanted to win. She took a deep breath, then faced him. There was something
animal-like about his jawline, but she refused to be intimidated by it.