The Predicteds (5 page)

“Is that why you lied to me?”

“I didn't lie. I just didn't want to tell you the truth.”

Melissa is very literal sometimes. “And you'll tell me now?”

“I don't have much choice, do I? I'm afraid you'll decimate the place.” She points at the open binder on the floor.
Decimate
is a bit of an exaggeration.

“How do I know you won't lie to me again, just like you did last night?”

“You don't.”

She's so irritating sometimes. I try again. “What does it mean to be predicted?”

“It involves a complex analysis of genes, personality, behavior, and predilections that can identify a person as a future criminal. But I'm guessing you've figured that much out already.”

“Who is predicted at QH?”

“I can honestly say that I don't know. I left Utopia before we had the last set of names. And I don't remember any of the early lists. We tested at Quiet High for quite a few years. I never really paid attention to the names.”

“So your subjects aren't even people to you?”

“Don't be silly, Daphne. That's not what I said.”

“Why Quiet High?”

Melissa leans back in her desk chair, crosses her legs, and steeples her fingers underneath her chin, like she is my psychiatrist. “We needed a test site. Most schools wouldn't hear of scientists coming in to do psychological profiling. Quiet High jumped at the chance—Utopia offered the school board a lot of money. You know the new addition at QH?” I nod. “Paid for by Utopia. And parents at QH signed permission slips, allowing their kids to be tested without raising a single question. It was a dream situation, actually. And then I did a couple of rounds of testing at Academy, just because we had access there—because of you and all the other kids whose parents worked at Utopia. We wanted to make sure that our results weren't skewed, because they were all obtained in Oklahoma.”

“Do you believe in it?”

“Believe in what?” she asks as she scoots back in her rolling chair and plops her feet on her desk, knocking over a cup of coffee. She ignores it and kicks off her “good” shoes—ugly brown Mephisto sandals that she's had forever—onto the floor. She wiggles her toes.

“Do you believe that this program, PROFILE, can predict people's behaviors?”

“Of course!” She seems offended that I would suggest otherwise. “The brain is not as complicated as it might seem, Daph. PROFILE simply allows us to see inside of it. Once we're in there, it's not hard to predict how it's going to work. And from there, we simply take note of what's going to happen.”

“What can it tell you?”

“What do you want to know?” she asks, incredulous. “The criminal predictions are the most useful, but in most cases, we can also identify antisocial and persistent problematic behavior. Cheating, lying, stealing, drug abuse—that kind of thing.”

“And when will people who are predicted do the things they are predicted to do?”

Melissa leans over and picks up the empty coffee cup. “We don't know that much yet. With more research, maybe we could tell. Right now, we just know what people are
going
to do, but we don't necessarily know when. We aren't psychics.” She laughs, which seems kind of insensitive, given what we are discussing.

I remain serious. “But can't people change? Don't you think that you're influencing people? Like maybe someone wouldn't be all of these awful things, but now he thinks he is, so he just gives in? How can you live with that, Melissa?”

She covers her eyes with her hands and rubs them. “Why do you think I left Utopia?”

“You were fired?”

“Don't be silly. I left by my own accord. I just wasn't sure that we'd fully considered all of these angles. And without me, the research is pretty much at a standstill.”

“Am I predicted?” I ask.

She opens her eyes wide and then sits up straight, her feet flat on the floor. “Absolutely not! Did someone tell you that?

“No. Have I been PROFILEd?”

“Yes, from when you were at Academy. Remember all those interviews with the counselors?”

I do. I remember all the dumb questions I had to answer:
Would you rather murder someone or be murdered yourself?
What kind of question is that?

Melissa stands up and puts her shoes back on. “You are not predicted, Daphne. You aren't even at risk for smaller negative behaviors. You are perfect. Just as we've always known…but not everybody is like you. PROFILE helps us see inside minds.”

“That sounds wrong. How can a computer program know anything about what a person is like on the inside? I can't believe you, of all people, would be willing to let technology define humanity.” I feel triumphant. That last phrase sounds exactly like something Melissa herself would say. “PROFILE is just plain wrong,” I say petulantly. “It has to be.”

“I don't know,” Melissa says. “I'm not sure I know anything anymore.”

She sniffles. I hesitate and then pat her on the back. She looks so sad all of a sudden.

I soften a bit. “I know how much your work means to you.” I go from being mad at her to feeling sorry for her before I even realize it. Melissa has a way of turning me into an ally, even when I want to run away and never talk to her again. I pat her back gently, annoyed that I feel sympathy for her.

“You should know,” she says slowly, “that they will be releasing the predicted lists at Quiet High very soon. I don't think we can avoid that. Not after what happened. I've been talking to your principal. There's nothing I can do to stop these names from becoming public. You'll need to be prepared for what happens.”

“What do you think is going to happen?”

She laughs bitterly. “I wish I could predict that. But honestly, Daph, I have no idea.”

Releasing the predicted lists will ease a lot of minds. I'll feel better when I know which of my daughter's classmates are capable of barbarity.

—Marianna Bass, mother of Brooklyn Bass

“You look fancy,” Melissa tells me when I come out of my room. She's in the kitchen making tuna salad. “Want some?” she asks.

“No, I'm going out.”

She drops the mayonnaise spoon in the metal bowl. “
My
Daphne? Going
out?
In Quiet? And on a Friday night? This is news. You've never
gone out
here.”

“Yes, well, I'm full of surprises.”

“Who is he?” Melissa says, picking at the spoon with her fingertips.

“What makes you think there's a
he?
”

She points at my skinny jeans, my brown ankle boots, and my jade-green top, the one with the scoop neck and a lace insert; I've thrown a soft cardigan over it. I top it all off with chunky beads and a silver-studded barrette to hold back my long bangs. “You're dressed to impress.”

“Well, you're wrong,” I say defensively. “I'm hanging out at the lake with a bunch of people from school.”

“Yeah? That doesn't sound like your speed at all.”

It's not. In fact, I don't really want to go, but it's what everyone talked about at school all week. I was sort of invited as an honored guest. Dizzy caught me in the hallway Wednesday and begged me to come. She actually got down on her knees and begged, claiming it was
soooo boring
going to the same parties every week with the same people. I'm a fresh face, new ears to fill with her gossip. I relented only so she would get up and stop embarrassing both of us.

“It's so
not
my speed,” I say to Melissa.

“By the way, I'm glad we had that talk on Tuesday. And I'm glad you are speaking to me again. The past week with you has been lovely. I feel like you've completely outgrown all of your teenage drama. I love it. Maybe you've turned into an actual adult now. A real little person.”

I smile flatly. Melissa's pseudo-compliments are generally tinged with enough traumatic subtext to keep me in therapy for years.

“I'm taking the Accord,” I say. It feels weird to share a car, when just a few months ago I had my own and I could leave anytime I wanted to without fear of leaving her stranded.

“I don't care,” Melissa says. “I have my two feet if I need anything.” I head for the door. Unlike any normal mother I know, Melissa refrains from saying anything about being careful or about being home by eleven. Instead, she tells me to pay close attention to the sky. “Mercury is in retrograde!” she calls excitedly.

***

Lake Vernon is on the edge of town, just behind the boat motor factory. I read about it online—it's a human-made lake, built a few years ago to increase the value of the property surrounding it. Last year, some guy was fined for releasing his pet piranha into the lake. The piranha then ate a bunch of the fish that the city stocked in the lake for fishing. The year before that, a couple of swimmers got some gross parasitic worms from the lake. Now there are signs all over telling people not to swim in the lake and/or dump garbage or animals. Only in Quiet would you have to tell people this.

The lake is a welcome interlude between the dust fields on one end of town and the rundown buildings of downtown Quiet on the other. If not for the humidity hanging in the air and the red dirt peeking up from newly awakening grass, it could be Minnesota. I squint my eyes, willing the place into submission, making it into what I want it to be.

The lot I park in is almost full—people are spilling out of their cars into the cool night air. It's finally stopped raining, and there's a summer-like feeling tonight. Everyone seems happy to be outside. You'd never believe that barely two weeks ago, we were all held hostage by a guy who is now dead. With the exception of a giant cross in the hallway at school, it's almost like nothing happened and that monster never existed in the first place.

Dizzy sees me before I see her. She takes a running leap for me, wraps her arms around my back, and shrieks. “You came! Let me introduce you.”

She rattles off names—mostly people I recognize from school, although I know I'll never remember all of their names. One of the guys, a bulky, sandy-haired kid named Bucky Roy (that's his first name), says, “Aren't you the new girl who threw up in the chem lab?”

“Yeah, that's me.”

“The new girl is here!” Bucky Roy yells. Some people stare.

You can spot the ranch kids—the cowboys like Bucky Roy—because they drive Chevy or Ford pickups, eat homemade triple-decker steak sandwiches for lunch, and belong to the FFA (Future Farmers of America). The guys almost always have a telltale round imprint in the back pocket of their Wranglers. I recently learned that's their
chaw
—chewing tobacco. I find clumps of it in the water fountains and all over the sidewalks by the parking lot. The cowboys date the
farm girls
—the girls who have belt buckles of their own and who have, at some point in their lives, entered a homegrown vegetable in the state fair competition.

In contrast, the popular guys live in town. They like sports, video games, beer from a keg, and illegal fireworks. They wear jeans or cargos. Their baseball caps are ever-present and pulled low. They seem nice enough, although they are constantly joking around, accusing each other of being gay, something that no guy would ever have done at Academy in Saint Paul. Dizzy introduces me to one of these guys: Sam Cameron, the guy from chemistry who tried to talk to the shooter. When he's standing up, I see that he's got to be well over six feet tall. He's a curly-haired, blond giant, all athletic skill and muscle wrapped in a boy-next-door package. “Hey,” he says, sticking his hand out to me. “Really nice to officially meet you. Glad you could make it.”

He gives me a once-over, and I feel like barfing—he's totally not my type. I'd wager money that his mother worships the ground he spills corn nuts and Mountain Dew on. “Hey,” I say.

“Come on,” Dizzy says. “I'll take you to Brooklyn and the other girls.”

Sam holds up a Miller Lite in one hand and a Diet Coke in the other. “Which one?” he says to me. I point to the Coke, and he tosses it to me. “Hope to see you again, Daphne,” he says and smiles broadly.

Dizzy giggles as we walk away. She grabs my arm. “He likes you,” she whispers.

“Great,” I whisper back sarcastically.

She leads me to a group of girls who are standing around someone's open tailgate. “
Hola, chicas!
” Dizzy yells. Some of the girls run to hug her, like they haven't seen her for weeks, when in reality, she'd only walked away for a few minutes.

Lexus Flores, the girl with the shiny cap of hair, gives me a tiny wave. “You look hot, Dizz,” she says. “Did I say that already?”

Dizzy does an exaggerated model pose. “This old thing?” she says with mock dismissal. She's wearing a tight, short black skirt, a billowy pink sleeveless top with a clunky black necklace, and black lace-up boots with super high heels that she's tottering in. Most of the other girls are wearing jeans.

Cuteny—the petite girl with two blond pigtails whom I also met in the library—pretends to bow down to Dizzy. “Bestow upon me your fashion sense, Dizz.”

Dizzy waves it all away with one hand, though it's obvious that she's delighted by the attention. Brooklyn, the tiara girl, is there too. “Hi,” she says. “Have you met Ruth and Stephie?” She points at two of the other girls, a tall one wearing a soccer sweatshirt and a shorter one clutching a tube of lip gloss that she applies and reapplies to her already shiny lips.

“We saw you talking to Sammy, Dizz. What's going on there?” This comes from Cuteny.

“Nada,” Dizzy says. “He wasn't even remotely interested in me. Not when Daphne here is around. You should see the way he looked at her!”

Everyone yells, “
Woooo
,” at the same time, the way that fourth graders do when they see people kissing.

“Sam's just friendly,” Brooklyn says. “He's not interested in you.” Behind her, Dizzy mouths at me,
She wants him.

“I'm not really looking for a relationship anyway,” I tell Brooklyn.

“Good,” she says firmly. She turns around to face the lake until chatter resumes. Everyone but me is deep in the middle of a conversation about whether it's appropriate to wear pajamas in public when Brooklyn yells, “Oh my god!”

We all turn to look. “What?” Dizzy asks urgently.

“What's wrong?” Lexus chimes in.

“There she is! I didn't think she'd come. Poor thing.” Everyone stares toward the bank of the lake, me included. Two shadowy figures are standing side by side, passing a cigarette between them.

“It's January,” Cuteny says quietly.

Oh
, the others say under their breaths, much the way they might react if they'd just come across a squashed puppy on the highway.

When she moves under a streetlight, I see that it is January. She's wearing the same basic getup she had on that day in the library, except she has some kind of weird, cape-like sweater over it all. Next to her is a short, rodent-like kid with a pale blond mustache threatening to overtake his top lip. I know him from one of my classes. He's Nate Gormley, one of those outcast kids who seems to always be smoking or skulking around, making you think he's just done something illegal.

“Poor thing,” Lexus also says. “She really deserves our pity.”

“She's the sister of the shooter,” Ruth tells me.

“I know,” I say. I study January in the distance. She's so skinny and tiny, she looks like a winged fairy in that oversized sweater cape. But something about the way she holds her head, the way she squares her shoulders, makes me think she is far cleverer than she lets on.

“Poor girl. With genes like that, who knows where she's headed,” Stephie says, smacking her lips.

“Personally,” Brooklyn says, clearing her throat, “I do feel sorry for her, but I don't want to be around her. You just don't know what a person like her will do. Those people who come from that kind of genetic stock are like wild animals. You just never know. We should be kind, of course, but we need to avoid people like January and that awful Nate Gormley. Let them stick together. Then when they snap, they'll only hurt each other and not innocent people like us.”

I stare at her with a gaping mouth. Is she serious? I wait for someone to respond, but everyone just sort of nods reverently.

“I can't believe you would say that,” I tell Brooklyn myself when it's evident no one else is going to speak up.

Her eyes widen. “What? I'm just telling the truth.” She turns to the others, waiting for them to defend her. Nobody does. “Fine,” she says eventually. “I'm going to say hi to Sam.” Then she stalks off toward the boys, shooting me a dirty look in passing.

“Brooklyn is kind of excitable,” Dizzy says to me when she's gone. “She thinks everyone is genetically flawed.”

“That shooting has everyone on edge,” Lexus say. “Let's try to forget about it, though. No use obsessing about it. Once we know all of the PROFILE results, we'll know exactly who to avoid.”

“Right,” Dizzy says confidently.

Then they change the subject—so quickly that it takes me a minute to catch up. When I do, I realize they are talking about Dizzy's ex-boyfriend, some guy named Josh Heller. Dizzy points at him in the distance for my benefit.

“Isn't he hot?” Lexus says.

I guess I could see how he might be attractive to some, but the baby face and wavy red hair don't quite do it for me. In the dim light, he looks like he could be Pippi Longstocking's older brother. “Not really,” I say honestly, but everyone ignores me. They all watch him move toward the lakeshore, a beer in each hand. He stops near January.

“Josh Heller's mom has more money than God,” Ruth says to me. “Not that I care. But ever since she married David Kable, she's rolling in it.”

“Jesse's dad,” Dizzy supplies for my benefit. “Have you met Jesse yet?” She sucks in her breath. “Oh, yeah. He was in the closet with you that day. I'm sorry.”

“It's okay,” I say. “He seems pretty…” I search for the right word. “Pleasant.” It's not really what I mean, but I can't find the words I want.

Dizzy laughs. “Pleasant?”

“You obviously don't know about his past,” Lexus says as she runs her fingers through her hair, her head tipped backward.

“What about it?” I ask. More gossip. These girls are absolutely full of it.

“Well…” Dizzy says, giving Lexus a complicated look. “It's all just rumors. Be quiet, you guys. Jesse saved her life. She doesn't want to hear this.”

“Yes, shush,” Cuteny says. “Besides, it's rude to talk about people behind their backs.”

Lexus laughs loudly. “When did that ever bother you, Cute?” She turns back to me. “There's been a rumor going around, since forever ago, that Jesse was stalking this older girl who broke up with him. She had a restraining order against him.”

“Allegedly,” Cuteny notes.

“Allegedly,” Lexus repeats. “It's probably not even true. You know how rumors are.” We all nod.

“I don't care if he
is
a stalker. Because Jesse is
yummy!
” Cuteny yells. Everyone giggles. “And Sam,” she adds, doing a fake make-out session with her hand in front of her face. Clearly, this girl wants every guy at QH. I wonder how she feels about Bucky Roy.

Suddenly, I feel really tired and startlingly out of place, like a zoo animal, or some kind of unusual Minnesota wildlife—a black-tailed prairie dog on display for these Oklahoma predators.