Phantom Universe

by Laura Kreitzer

CHAPTER 35: CLASS

  16 years old

  To enter into the Leaguer building you have to scan your wrist or else the doors won’t open. They don’t want anyone entering unless they have a class in here. Fusion Energy in 2210 is her first class. Summer and Landon walk down a long hallway; their classroom is about halfway down. Before they reach it, Summer catches Gage standing at the other end, watching her intently. Landon glares at him and wraps an arm around Summer, pulling her into the classroom. They both scan their wrists as they enter. There are very few seats, and most of them are already filled. They sit in the very back—which is only the sixth row.

  A subject that Summer would be intrigued by goes unnoticed as she doodles on an Astropad that’s been provided to each student at the beginning of their first class. It’s a tablet-like computer where you can write or type on a touch screen keyboard. Summer used one in the hospital so it isn’t anything new to her, but the other students are fascinated and have to go through a thirty minute lesson to learn how to work them.

  A few times she swears she sees Gage walk by, along with other Leaguers—which shouldn’t be abnormal since this is the building most of them stay in. But what is abnormal is that they constantly peek their heads into the classroom, scanning the rooms like they’re searching for someone in particular. This is also strange since they can track every person behind the fence right now. She hates the feeling of someone observing her. It’s become a regular occurrence lately, and she doesn’t like it anymore now than she did before. She’s the observer, not the other way around.

  Before she knows it, Landon’s dragging her from the classroom to go to another building, scanning their wrists again as they exit the classroom and again as they exit the Leaguer building. The next class is History and Pop Culture in Cherry Hall. This is also a subject she’s highly interested in, and yet another she doesn’t pay any attention to. Instead, she writes Gage a letter, then erases it, and then writes another one. She does this through the whole class, each one full of different emotions. Angry, pleading, upset, you name it . . . she probably feels it.

  Before the class lets out, she writes Landon a note on her new Astropad. It says, “I’m going to eat lunch in my room today. Alone . . . please.” She scoots it over to him. She just needs time to think without the interruption of the snobs from Beverly Hills or the sure to be upbeat conversation her friends will try to push onto her.

  He reads it quickly and then glances up at her, reading her face. He makes an internal decision and then writes quickly across the surface of the Astropad. He passes it back to her, and she reads it. “Want me to walk you to your room?”

  She shakes her head—she just wants to be alone. Weird, considering all the times being alone was the scariest thing on the planet.