Redemption Prep

by Samuel Miller

  “Because it matters more than anything else that I do here!” I said.

  “But what if it didn’t?”

  I know the work I’m going to do will be important, and the lives I’ll change will be immeasurable, and my family will get to live in a house with both a pool and a sauna inside it. I know exactly what the future is supposed to look like, if I just give myself to it completely.

  But what if I didn’t?

  Is there a version of myself who isn’t obsessed with her work, a girl I’ve never met, who laughs with her friends in the lunchroom and hangs a wall full of pictures behind her bed? Is there something further down inside me, a plane of existence where accolades and trophies melt away into perfectly normal, golden days of nothing to do and no one to please? Have I been squinting so hard in a single direction, at a distant future, that I’ve made myself blind?

  I don’t know why you guys moved me from the C-School to the Human dorms. Probably to mess with my head. I definitely don’t know why Emma put a photo of us on her wall.

  It seems like it’s all happening for a reason. Maybe one day I’ll learn what that reason is.

  Neesha.

  TO BE SAFE, Neesha made the walk up and back to the stone well twice, to make sure the envelope hadn’t fallen out. The woods were creepy at this time of night, full of foreign sounds, animal noises; the wall of fog created a separation between the world of the school and the world of the unknown around it. At one point, she felt something creeping up on her, and spun just in time to catch a branch, swinging harmlessly back and forth.

  She hurried back to the dorms, empty-handed. If she was quick, she might be able to get to Zaza before the sweep and get her money back. She couldn’t stand the idea of going to Emma with nothing, spending an entire sweep locked in their room in bitter disappointment. Emma had trusted her with this; she wasn’t going to fail so spectacularly on her first try.

  As her footsteps crunched along the path, she noticed a shuffling noise, like the swish of plastic against plastic. It got louder as she got closer, but it wasn’t coming from the school; it was coming from in front of her, across the lawn. The sound began to morph, hiccuping like human laughter, human voices, and then footsteps.

  She froze in the middle of the path, staring at it. A flashlight clicked on; a tiny, solitary beam, shooting toward the school. Another flashlight clicked on. Then another. Then three more. Then an entire army, too many to count, at least fifty beams, moving and circling and scanning in all directions.

  In one unified motion, the flashlights began to advance. The siren shifted up a pitch, and the school’s intercom system ripped out once more across the grounds.

  “All students must presently be in their dorms. The maintenance sweep is beginning.”

  She stood frozen for a moment, watching them. She’d never seen a sweep from the outside before. Usually they were just drills or extra precautions during storms when there were serious electricity problems. One time, in her Year Two, a boy named Yasmani fell asleep in the forest, and they called a sweep for the two hours it took to find him.

  She started to walk back toward her dorm. It’s not worth it. That’s what Zaza had said in the forest. Of course it was worth it—the work was incredible, far more revolutionary than anyone else’s at Redemption in her four years. But, she realized, she’d never actually pictured the consequences. Every time she brought it up with Emma, Emma told her not to worry, people got away with breaking the rules all the time. But that wasn’t entirely true. Emma got away with breaking the rules all the time. And Emma wasn’t here anymore.

  Neesha walked faster, down a separate, wider path, around the march of the flashlights. You’re all of us now, that’s what her mother had told her, with a kiss on the forehead at the drop-off for the bus. We’re all with you. She meant it as a promise that the family would support her and watch over her. But as the tape had played back in her head over the years, warped from repetition, it started to sound more like a threat. You’re responsible for all of us now. We’re all counting on you.

  No one in her family had found their footing in America yet. They’d moved from Chandigarh so she could go to Redemption, but back in Salt Lake City, things kept getting worse. Her father’s position had slipped at his company, and he was made to go through Americanization training; her mother, her brother, and her brother’s wife couldn’t find consistent work. The only one who liked it here was her sister, but all of them sucked it up, for the promise of cashing their golden ticket—Neesha’s brain.

  What if the school found out about Apex? How would she be punished? And what would her mother say about that?

  The Human Lounge had cleared out by the time Neesha was inside. Only the highest frequencies of the sirens were audible through the stone walls, but red lights popped and flashed intermittently down the connected hallways. She took the stairs, two at a time, checking over her shoulder for flashlights. When she reached the third floor, she turned the corner into her hallway and froze—

  In the flashing lights, she could make out five staff members, each wearing the school’s plastic protective suits, congregated outside her room.

  “Neesha.” One of them noticed her from down the hall; she couldn’t tell who. “We need to talk to you.”

  She felt the weight pushing down against her shoulders.

  “When was the last time you saw Emma?”

  Aiden.

  “HEY, BUDDY,” THE voice said to him from above, quick and sharp, with an accent. “Who’s that?”

  He rounded the bleachers, turning into the light. It was a tall guy, skinny but with a puffy orange jacket hanging from his shoulders. “Wait,” he said. “I recognize you . . . Peter, right?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, Peter Novak, buddy.”

  “We met Year One, you were in my orientation group. For capture the flag. I’m Aiden.”

  “Cool.”

  “What are you doing out here?”

  Peter cleared his throat. “Seems like a nice night for a sit. You?”

  Aiden ignored the question, instead scanning the court for something he might have missed. There was no other entrance to the cage, and no movement around them. It was just the two of them.

  “You’re looking for Emma?” Peter asked.

  “Yeah, we were supposed to meet after mass, but . . .” Aiden pointed to his head.

  “Goofy look, man.”

  “It’s not a look, it’s a bandage. I was bleeding from my head after that kid slammed me into the altar.”

  “Why’d you let a kid slam you into an altar?”

  “I didn’t let him, he was freaking out and I stopped him from hurting anybody. You don’t remember this from mass?”

  “Oh, no, I got the fuck outta there. What a mess.”

  “Huh. She must have gone back before the sweep. . . .”

  Aiden’s skin was crawling. He was sweaty from the run, but it was more than that. The prickly sense that something was wrong, the feeling that someone was watching him, the palpable weight of the mist in the air—all clung to him like moisture.

  “Yeah . . .” Peter looked nervous.

  “What?”

  “I came straight from mass, buddy,” he said. “Emma hasn’t been here.”

  Aiden looked at him. “No offense, but you probably don’t know who I’m talking about.”

  “No, I know who Emma is. I was supposed to meet her, too.”

  He felt the impact in his stomach. “Are you serious?”

  Peter nodded.

  “For what?”

  Peter squirmed a bit. “For important, personal business between me and her.”

  Aiden couldn’t control himself; he leapt up the bleachers, two at a time, his hands flying straight for Peter’s jacket.

  “Easy, easy,” Peter said, moving away from him. “I was buying! It was a transaction!”

  Aiden froze, halfway up the bleachers.

  Peter peeked up from where he was crouching. “Jesus, be careful with
that energy, buddy. I can see your insecurity from here.”

  Aiden sat, rubbing his face with his hands. She never came. She probably never even planned on coming. She’d lied.

  “Sorry, buddy.” Peter sat next to him. “Looks like you might’ve been wrong about some stuff.” He felt Peter’s hand on his back. “Whoa, you’re sweaty. Did you run all the way out here?”

  Aiden nodded. They sat in silence for a long couple of minutes, his brain racing through everything she’d said to him tonight, everything he’d done in the last two weeks. He’d been afraid that if he didn’t make it out in time, he’d lose her, but the truth was, he never had her at all.

  “Let me ask you something,” Peter said, still watching him. “You’re taking right now, yeah?”

  Aiden hadn’t noticed, but his hands were active, grabbing uncontrollably at the bottom of the bandage around his head.

  “Yeah, you’re up. Here.” Peter held out a water bottle. “Gotta stay hydrated, bro. Apex will fry your shit.”

  Aiden took it and drank. He nearly emptied the bottle, handing it back to Peter with a small reservoir in the bottom. “I took one on my way here.”

  “You got more?”

  Aiden shook his head. “Not on me, but I just bought five hundred for the team.”

  “Five hundred?”

  Aiden shrugged. “It’s not really a thing to me.”

  He could feel Peter surveying him more critically. “Are you the prince of some country or something? Did you invent a hair product?”

  “My dad owns some grocery stores.”

  “Huh.” Peter put a dip of tobacco in his cheek. “Now, you’re a basketball player, right?”

  Aiden nodded.

  “You any good?”

  “There are NBA scouts coming to watch me next week.”

  “Jesus, are you serious? Man, some guys have all the luck.”

  “It’s not luck,” Aiden spat back. “I work for my shit.”

  “Sure.” Peter spat on the ground in front of them. “Just saying, no one’s going to pay me millions of dollars to be in debate. I didn’t even get recruited here to debate. They just thought it was cool I could speak twelve languages, then stuck me with an activity.”

  Peter watched him for another long minute, even though Aiden was making it obvious he wasn’t interested in talking. “Are you still here?” Aiden asked finally.

  “Yeah, sorry, buddy. Just trying to figure this out.”

  “Figure what out?”

  “You’re trying out for the fucking NBA next week, and tonight you’re sprinting out here, during a sweep, to meet your girlfriend, who didn’t even show up?”

  “So?”

  Peter shook his head. “Nothing. Just interesting.”

  The sirens shifted, faintly droning in the background, raised a half step, and they heard the far-off announcement that the sweep was starting. “Alright, that’s the edge of my patience,” Peter said, moving down the bleachers. “Good luck, buddy.”

  He stopped once he was on the ground and turned back to Aiden. “I hope she shows up. Kinda looks like you lost yourself up there.”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. Good luck next week, buddy.” Peter shrugged and strolled off.

  Aiden sat alone for another ten minutes, overreacting anytime a sound echoed from the forest or the school behind him. The last time they were here, just the two of them, Emma confided something in him. What did she say? He could barely remember, but it was serious, about flowers and her parents, how they treated her. She’d said something that didn’t make sense, how she didn’t want to be special, or how she wished people would pay less attention to her. It was hard to listen to Emma when she was in one of her hopeless moods. She’d talk like the sky was falling, then forget it all the next day. But this one was different.

  Whatever it was, he hadn’t done anything about it then, and it was too late to do anything about it now. Emma had moved on to whatever was more important than him, and he was left here, in their spot, alone.

  Evan.

  “PEACE BE WITH you,” a maintenance worker said, standing in the doorway, blocking most of it.

  “And also with you,” Zaza said from his desk chair.

  “You know the drill, right? I’m gonna look in all your stuff, you’ve gotta open it for me, you signed up for this, et cetera?”

  “Yeah, sure thing.”

  Evan tucked himself into the doorway. His face was a few inches from the frame of the door, and he flinched every time the red light behind him exposed his position.

  “Do you think it’s weird they make you all dress like janitors?” Zaza asked. He leaned back comfortably, like he had nothing to hide. If he did know something about Emma, he certainly wasn’t going to give it up to a random maintenance worker.

  “No way. I had to sweep some of the labs in the chemical science building one time—I don’t know what kind of crazy shit they’ve got going on in there.” The maintenance worker had walked across the room and was looking in Zaza’s closet. “How’d you get the solo dorm?”

  “Two years. Since late in my Year One—”

  “That’s lucky.”

  “—when my roommate had a mental breakdown.”

  “Less lucky.”

  “It’s fine. Half the kids in the C-School have had mental breakdowns. Mostly the ones who don’t win their reviews.”

  “Win their reviews?”

  “Yeah, we get judged one-on-one against a classmate, so only half the people pass. It’s stressful.”

  The man knelt to scan his flashlight under the bed.

  “What are you guys even looking for?” Zaza asked.

  “Just trying to ensure that everyone is accounted for.”

  “So someone’s missing.”

  “We don’t know that yet.”

  “And you think they might be under my bed?”

  “She could be anywhere. Students here are too smart for their own good.”

  “So it’s a she.”

  The flashlight reached its farthest point under the bed, the light swallowed to a single spot by a blanket, and Evan took three silent steps into the room. His body must have pushed an air current, because as the light came leaking back out, Zaza’s head turned to the hallway. Evan breathed through his nose, watching from between the door and the wall.

  “When will the lights come back on?” Zaza asked. “I’ve got three sets due tomorrow morning for O-Chem.”

  The man hoisted himself back up. “Don’t you guys have stuff for candles?”

  “Yeah, but I can’t really compare three forty-cell spreads by candlelight.” On Zaza’s desk was the school’s basic-issue set: two wax candles, a copper holder, and a small box of matches. They were told in Year One that given the frequency of power outages and maintenance sweeps, they’d need to get used to working by candlelight.

  “I’m sure previous generations had it much worse than you.”

  “They also knew a lot less and died a lot younger.”

  The maintenance worker didn’t respond, so Zaza lit his candle. The man used his flashlight to scan the room once more, down to the carpet, up to the exposed stone in the ceiling. Evan held his breath, praying.

  “Sometimes,” he said, the beam hovering two feet over Evan’s head, “I think the people who built this place had never been inside an actual building before.” The light whipped back to Zaza’s face at the desk. “Lights will be on when we’re done.”

  The door slid shut with a soft click behind him. Zaza leaned back with a heavy sigh, S2—Subtext suggesting a release of tension, his fingers, legs, and neck dropping to assume the curvature of the chair. From his inside jacket pocket, Zaza pulled out a baggie of silver pills and dropped them on his desk. He fell forward, burying his face into them, letting out a guttural moan.

  “It’s Emma.”

  Zaza shot up. “What the fuck?”

  “That’s who they’re looking for,” Evan sai
d quietly. He’d moved to the bottom of the bed.

  “Evan?” Zaza recognized him immediately. They’d met twice, once during his Year One orientation, and once when they were placed on the same team during a physical activity day. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m looking for her.”

  “Who?”

  “Emma. I just told you.”

  “Okay,” Zaza said. “But what are you doing here? Actually—how are you here? There’s a sweep going on. Did they not see you out there?”

  “It’s not complicated.” Evan talked to his thumbs.

  “Jesus.” Zaza took a breath. “How’d you know that they’re looking for Emma?”

  “Because she’s missing.”

  “Pretty sure I saw her in church.”

  “She disappeared before it was over.”

  “And you came to see me, because . . .”

  Zaza slid the candle toward Evan’s face, and he felt the heat curling against his cheek, leaking into his eye. It hurt so he backed away, blocking the direct wave with his hand and wincing, shorter than his shadow. “You saw her,” he mumbled.

  Zaza was slow to nod. “Yeah, I mean, I saw her before church. I don’t know how you know that, but you’re right.”

  “Why?”

  The siren outside shifted pitch and grew louder. “Are you gonna get in trouble for being here?” Zaza asked. “Not in your dorm?”

  “I have four minutes.”

  “How could you possibly know that?”

  “What did you say to Emma?”

  Zaza stood for a moment, then sat back against the top of the desk, blocking Evan’s view of the bag of silver pills. “How old are you, anyway?”

  “Fourteen.”

  “Fourteen.” He kept looking directly into Evan’s eyes, while behind him, his left hand slid the pills behind a photo on his desk. “That’s young. So you must be crazy good at something.”

  Evan rocked back and forward a few times. “Chess,” he said.

  “That’s right,” Zaza said, smiling. “Second kid to beat the chess computer. Champion of the robots. I forgot that was you. Chess is pattern recognition, so . . .” He thought for a moment. “You’ve figured where they’re starting and how fast they’re moving, built a model—” He pointed to Evan’s watch. “And you know that you have four minutes to talk to me.”