The Academie (28 page)

“
It tastes real,” Ruby
said, scooping up a bite of cereal.

“
Okay, fine. Taste. We all
know taste can be simulated.”

“
Oh, not this,” Cayden
said, poking his bacon and eggs.

I looked to Robert.
“
You
know it’s
true. We eat fake stuff every day. We were raised on it.” I paused,
searching for an example.
What did Bryan
mention that time he tried to explain stuff about our food to
me?
“Pizza flavored potato chips!” I said.
“How do you explain the pizza flavored potato chip?”

“
They’re delicious,”
Cayden said. He laughed, and Stevie giggled.

“
Fine, but they aren’t
pizza. There are no pizza ingredients in them at all. And yet, when
you bite into one: pizza flavor.”

“
So what’s your point?”
Tina asked.

“
It’s all imitation. Using
a variety of chemicals, our bodies have been tricked into thinking
that we are experiencing pizza. But we aren’t.”

Robert laid his hands on
the table and looked at me intently. “So people can simulate pizza.
Allie, this is a
whole world
we are talking about.”

“
Thank you!” Tina said,
throwing her hands up. “That’s what I’m saying. There ain’t no
way.”

I shook my head. “You have to think
beyond what you know. It’s nothing we’ve experienced before. But
that doesn’t make it impossible.”

“
Well, what about smell?”
Stevie asked.

“
They’ve been doing that
for years,” Robert conceded.

“
It’s true. Think of all
the scented air fresheners out there,” Ruby said. “One time, when I
was kid, I came home from school and the house was full of the
smell of gingerbread cookies. My mind was filled with warm images.
I imagined my mother called off work, in the kitchen baking all
day, stacks of cookies mounded around her and more ready to come
out of the oven. I was so excited, I ran to the kitchen.

“
When I got there, all I
found was a scented candle lit on the stove. Later, I found mom
later in her office, working as always. I’d never been so
disappointed.”

We sat quiet for a moment, out of
respect for what Ruby had shared. We’d all had similar moments—not
necessarily involving a lighted candle, but moments where we
thought our parents might be present for us for just a moment—a
different kind of moment than the hellos from the office or the
goodnight’s in the evening could provide.

Stevie finally broke the silence.
“What about feeling? You know, touch?”

Robert shook his head. “You stick
enough sensors on a person, they can experience just about
anything.”

“
Oh man…” Tina said. She
closed her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t even want to think
about it.”

“
What?” Stevie
asked.

Tina and Robert exchanged
looks.

“
Oh no, I don’t want to
know,” I said, catching on.

“
Nothing,” Tina told
Stevie.

“
Oh no!” she exclaimed.
“You didn’t?”

Tina shrugged. Robert looked the other
way.

We all knew they had a thing for each
other, but they never showed any sign of having acted on
it.

“
Okay, so we know they can
simulate what we see and hear too,” Tina said, changing the
subject. “But just because they
can
doesn’t mean that they
are
. I’m not ready to believe it. I
got too much riding on this.

“
For some of you,” she
said, looking from me, to Cayden, to Robert, to Ruby, “it don’t
make any difference if you’re here or not. You have options,
opportunities.

“
But for some of us,” she
looked at Stevie, “it’s better here on the inside.”

We sat in silence. She was right. As
much as I wanted to hate The Academie—to just declare it evil and
work to bring about its downfall—I couldn’t. Just like the Tai Chi
symbol Shara had taught me about, The Academie wasn’t all good or
all bad. It was both, held in perfect balance. Could I destroy
that? Could I destroy the one chance some of us had to get an
education and make things better for themselves?

It was Stevie’s voice that broke the
silence again. “But if it’s not real….I don’t want it.”

Her face was so sad when she wasn’t
smiling.

Tina’s eyes welled up with tears.
“Well then,” she said. She stood, gathered her things, turned, and
walked away.

“
Should we go after her?”
I asked Robert.

He shook his head. “Let her go. She
needs time to sort it out.”

We sat there a moment, before I spoke
again. “So, are you guys, like a couple now?” I hoped to lighten
the mood.

“
I don’t know.” He looked
down and shook his head again. “She’s a complicated
woman.”

Tina and Robert were another reason I
couldn’t hate The Academie. Not only would I not have met either of
them, but they never would have gotten together otherwise. The
Academie brought us each of us together and set us on equal
ground.

Life was so much easier when things
were black or white. These shades of gray made life way too
complicated.

41.
when teachers attack

“
There’s a flaw in your
logic,” Tina said as she set her tray down at lunch. “If anything
can be simulated, then how can we ever know what’s
real?”

I didn’t answer, and she
continued.

“
You’re so convinced this
is not
the real world
, but how can you prove it? How could you ever prove
that
anywhere
or
anything
is real?”

I sat there, speechless. She was
right.

“
Besides, how’d they get
us into this ‘non-world’ without us noticing?” Tina
added.

All eyes turned to me, but it was Ruby
who spoke first. “They sent us to the medical ward when we came in
here,” she said.

The group’s gaze shifted to Ruby. “I
got a shot. Did you?” she asked.

One by one, we nodded.

The realization suddenly
dawned on me. “When my parents visited, the sergeant that pulled me
out of class didn’t take me right to them. He took me to the
medical ward—and they came up with an excuse for me to get a shot
again—before
and
after.”

“
Me too,” Ruby said. “When
my mom brought Charlotte.”

Robert looked surprised. “They gave
you a shot? Of what?”

“
Vitamin B,” Ruby and I
answered in unison.

The rest stared back at us blankly.
Then their eyes became wide. Too wide.

“
What?” I said, suddenly
freaked.

Then it happened. In unison, their
bodies lifted up slightly and then collapsed onto the
tabletop.

The noise reverberated around the
room. The sound of a hundred bodies suddenly dropping where they
were.

Ruby gasped and stood up
suddenly.

I got up and scanned the
room.

Only Ruby and I remained
upright.

The room went dark.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap
.

Someone was coming.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap
.

The footsteps echoed through the
otherwise silent room.

Tap.

I spun to see who it was.

Tap.

I couldn’t make out anything in the
darkness.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

“
Well, Miss Thompson,
you’re quite the trouble maker.”

The voice came from behind me, but I’d
recognize that screeching anywhere.

Sergeant Murk.

I turned to see only a
silhouette in the darkness, but it was
her.

“
What did you do?”
I demanded.

I wanted to reach over—to check on our
friends—but I was afraid to move.

“
What did
I
do? T-t-t-t.” Her
tongue clicked as it knocked against her teeth. “The question is,
what did
you
do?”
Her eyes bugged out from her over-pulled hair.

I stiffened.

“
Things were going so
nicely here. Classes were going well, students were behaving
themselves, performance was up. Young people were receiving a
quality education.” She looked at Tina. “Never before was this
possible.” My dislike for her was increasing. “But
you
had to go and spoil
it.”

“
What’s wrong with
them?’

“
We couldn’t let you ruin
everything for them.”

I glared at her.

“
You are a
virus
, Miss Thompson.”
She narrowed her eyes, and I narrowed mine back.

“
You know what we do with
viruses, don’t you?”

She’s bluffing,
I thought. I glanced back around the room, at all
the students who now lay lifeless—as though the fine chords that
separate life from death had been cut.

I grabbed Ruby, jolting
her back to reality.
“We’ve got to get out
of here.”

She began to back away, her eyes still
glued to Sergeant Murk. Then she looked down at our table of table
of friends, grabbed my hand, and pulled me as she took off
running.

We took off out of the cafeteria and
headed down a hall.

“
Where are we gonna
go?”
Ruby gasped as we ran.

“
I don’t know yet. But we
have to keep moving.”

We turned a corner, and I searched my
brain for somewhere, anywhere, we might hide.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

“
Faster!” I said, pulling
Ruby along.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

“
We’ve got to get out of
this place,” I called to Ruby. “Head for the entrance.”

“
What about the fences?
There’s no way out.”

“
Trust me.”

“
But they can see
everything from the upper windows! We’ll be sitting ducks out
there!”

We turned another corner and stopped
abruptly.

Sergeant Conrad stood between us and
the door.

“
Any chance you’re on our
side?” I asked.

“
Allie, this is over. Come
with me,” he replied.

“
I don’t think so,” I
said, shoving him aside. I grabbed Ruby’s arm and pulled her out
the door with me. “I’m dead now,” I yelled breathlessly as we ran
across the school yard. “I pushed a teacher!”

“
I can’t believe you did
that!”

I smiled. Something about it felt
good.

We continued running, and as we did, I
held tight to Ruby’s arm. She was all I had left now.

“
Where are we going?” she
asked again.

“
Just keep running,” I
said, looking to the windows in the building above us. On the third
floor I could see Sergeant Garrett staring out at us.
Did she know? Were they all against us
now?

We reached the back of the schoolyard
and I pulled Ruby toward the place where I had excited
previously.

“
Allie, this is ludicrous.
I can’t climb that,” she said, looking up at the fence as she made
her way through the hedge.

“
You don’t need to.” I
pointed to the break in the fence.

“
That? I can’t fit through
there.”

“
Why not? I have.” I
looked back at the school and saw a crowd beginning to form
outside.
The teachers.
“Besides, I don’t think we have a whole lot of time to
discuss it.

Ruby caught my gaze. “Oh god!”she
gasped.

“
Come on; you can do
this,” I said, sliding between the poles. “See? No big
deal.”

My eyes caught sight of dark figures
running through the school yard.

“
Ruby. Don’t look back.
Just come.
NOW!”

Her eyes darted back to the school.
“Oh!”

“
Come on!
Hurry!”

“
Allie…I can’t…I’m stuck.”
Her face was panicked.

“
No you aren’t. You’re
almost out.”

She didn’t move.

“
Ruby. None of this is
real. You are whatever you think you are. You are skinny Ruby.
Super, super skinny. Come on now, you can do this!”

“
I can’t!”