The smell of baking bread was intense. Several large tractor-trailers were just pulling out from subterranean loading bays, their engines downshifting as the big trucks crept up a steep ramp, carrying our products off campus. The front of the factory was bare. Dust caked the brick surface; lightning bolts of rust threaded through the metal handrails and staircases. All the improvements that the school was doing for the celebration, all the new paint, the resurfacing of the sidewalks—none of that was necessary here.
I took my usual route to the mixing rooms, following the south staircase to the second floor. The first wallscreen I passed stopped me. “James Goodhouse,” it said, “please report to your supervisor’s office.”
That wasn’t good. I tried to log on to my personal page, but the screen locked as I typed in my password. “Please report to your supervisor’s office,” it said. “Allotted Journey Time is still in effect.”
“Shit,” I said. I ran up the stairs to the offices on the third floor. Another wallscreen told me to wait, but there was no bench, no obvious place to sit, so I just stood there.
Even though the machinery was in a different part of the building, the drone of thousands of moving metal parts made the atmosphere buzz. A series of doors punctuated the wall to my right. All had a red light above them to indicate that I would not be admitted. To my left was a long bank of glass observation windows. They framed the shipping department one floor below. Men in orange jumpsuits and hairnets wheeled big stacks of trays into different areas. It was a shift of convicts, a common occurrence at the factory, where Mule Creek inmates often worked as a step toward their eventual rehabilitation. Now I looked at these men with renewed curiosity and a sense of unreality. A few nights ago, I’d had been among them.
At the end of the hallway, a line of exhibit cases displayed historic packaging for a variety of Goodhouse products. I walked over to examine them. I knew a little of the history. In the beginning, the Ione factory baked a lot of different breads, but only the cupcakes had sold. The public was uncomfortable buying staples from us, but they liked the idea of charity in the form of something harmless and sweet, almost like a Girl Scout cookie. Over time, the cupcakes became Swann Cakes—each wrapper emblazoned with a drawing of a happy swan carrying a picnic basket. The slogan read “Everything is better with chocolate.” The Goodhouse logo was shrunk and moved to the back.
“James?” a voice behind me said. A man in the green uniform of a Goodhouse alum walked out of an office. He had large, unnaturally bright teeth. His name was Tim. He scowled at me now. We’d met only a few times before, but I knew that the other students disliked him—almost, it seemed, as much as he disliked us. “I see you’re on light duty,” he said. He stared pointedly at my arm, the one that was still out of its sling. I tucked it back in. “I’m sure you’ll be recovering quickly,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“You make any trouble here and I won’t hesitate to confine you,” he said. “Got it?”
I nodded. The words Predatory Violence appeared at the top of my record now. Staff would be watching more closely.
Tim said he’d forgotten something in his office, and I turned toward the observation windows. An inmate stood in the middle of the room, staring up at me. His stillness caught my attention. Dozens of wheeled carts were on the move; boxes of bread were being prepped for shipment. But this man was like a ghost—arrested and staring. Just as I wondered if the glass was mirrored, if perhaps this was a coincidence, the man raised his arm to point at me. His mouth moved, but the words were lost.
“You ready?” Tim asked. I started at the sound of his voice. He marched me to the suiting-up room and then to the Quality Control area, a narrow, isolated space with two grain storage silos standing in the back. There was a small station where a boy perched on a metal stool in front of a conveyor belt. I’d heard that most of the production equipment had been scavenged from defunct bakeries, and here the machines had mottled exteriors, with numerous patches and replacement parts. A metal box with the words HOT ICING stenciled on the side looked like a long coffin on legs. The whole room was saturated with an earthy confectionery smell.
“You’ll do the rest of your shift here,” Tim said. He was shouting to be heard over the machinery. “You see an ugly cupcake, you put it on the tray. And don’t reach past this point.” He gestured to the place where the conveyor belt dove into the cooling tunnel, taking the cupcakes toward packaging. “In this section the machines are over a hundred and eighty years old,” he said. “They eat hands, arms, whatever you feed them.” He held up his own hand and showed me where he was missing the top of his right index finger. “You’re replaceable,” he said. “They’re not.” He asked me if I had any questions.
“Did that happen here?” I pointed to his finger.
“Not everything is better with chocolate,” he said. He patted the hulking side of a cooling tube. Then he turned and left.
I watched him go. There were rumors that Tim had given his finger to the Zeros, that they’d captured him and performed some ritual—condensing the demons inside him into a single digit, then removing and burning it. Tim was also famously surly. But I thought I’d be bitter, too, if I’d ended up working here after graduation, treated as less than a proctor, forced to wear a chip and eat with the students. I’d rather go to a recycling platform or one of the shale mines in the Aleutian Islands.
I sat on the stool and inspected cupcakes as they emerged from the hot-icer. I felt increasingly sleepy, and soon all the cupcakes blurred together. Occasionally, I saw one that looked lopsided and I put it on the tray. Chocolate frosting left damp curls on my fingers, and it took all my willpower to clean up with the towel, to refrain from sampling anything. There was a camera aimed at my station. It would flag any suspicious movements; it would notice if I brought a hand to my mouth.
Hours passed and I felt dull and empty. I kept thinking about Tuck, examining and reexamining the memory of beating him, probing it for some feeling, some remorse. I was waiting to recognize myself. The blast of a horn announced a problem down the line and the machinery quieted. The hot-icer hissed and fumed.
“Turn around slowly,” a voice said. In a second I was on my feet and pivoting toward the sound. Standing between two metal storage silos was a solitary figure in an orange jumpsuit. He stood with his feet slightly apart, as if he were ready to fight. The words MULE CREEK CORRECTIONS were written across his chest.
“Just stay where you are,” the man said. Underneath the white cloud of the hairnet, I saw thick, wavy black hair. There were little pockmarks on his cheeks, something that gave him a mottled, scarred appearance.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” he said. “Don’t try and call anyone.”
He studied the camera and I followed his gaze. He couldn’t get close to me without being filmed.
“What do you want?” I asked. I slipped my arm out of the sling.
“You’re the one who got Tuck,” he said. “Isn’t that right?”
“How is he?” I asked.
But the man just nodded as if I’d confirmed something. “Showing your face today was incredibly stupid,” he said. “Tuck’s people are looking for you.”
“Can you get him a message?” I asked.
“Are you listening to me?” the man said. “They’re going to find you.”
“It was an accident,” I said. “It was dark.”
The man seemed like he was about to say something, but he hesitated, as if reconsidering. “My name is Montero,” he said, “and right now, I’m your only friend in Mule Creek. You want protection?”
I looked around. “Do I need it?”
“I’ll keep his people off you, but it’s got to be in exchange for something.”
I frowned. “If Tuck’s people knew how to find me,” I said, “they’d have done it already.”
“They’ll figure it out,” Montero said. “I did. And now they’re motivated.” Sweat prickled in my hairline. My jumpsuit felt like a
humid plastic bag. “They know where you work,” he added.
The hot-icing machine hissed, and the smell of molten sugar and chocolate was thick in the air. I didn’t like this man’s civilian confidence, the way he stood with his chin jutting forward. I stared at the little metal rungs welded onto the sides of the grain silos. The rungs formed a ladder. There was a catwalk overhead, running between them and extending out of sight. I realized that this was how he must have gotten in. “What do you want?” I asked.
“Here,” Montero said. He slid something across the floor. It collided with the toe of my shoe. It appeared to be a shallow white box, no more than an inch and a half in width and a quarter-inch in depth.
“What is it?” I said. “What’s inside?”
“It’s not a present,” Montero said. “It’s a print reader.”
I recognized it now. Proctors opened doors with their fingerprints. In the newer buildings these devices were built into the handles and push plates, but in the older, retrofitted buildings, print readers like these were surface-mounted.
“Go on,” he said, “pick it up.”
I lifted my heel and stepped on the box, not hard enough to break it, but enough to threaten. “What is the Exclusion Zone?” I asked.
“Do not fuck with me,” Montero said.
“I’m not sure I need your protection,” I said. “But if you want me to listen”—I shifted my weight onto the box—“answer my question.”
He glanced at the door. The machinery made some sort of groaning noise, followed by a hydraulic sigh. “That device is worth more than you are,” Montero said. “You break it and I’ll slit your throat.”
I lifted my heel slightly. “What is the Exclusion Zone?” I repeated. “Is it a punishment?”
Montero smiled, but it looked more like a baring of teeth. “It’s a job,” he said. “That’s all. It’s money.”
“But that doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Why would they pay you to fight?”
“My turn,” Montero said. “Move your foot.” I did, and he rattled off instructions on how the box worked, how it could act like a reader but would capture the print of whoever touched its surface. He repeatedly asked me if I understood, but he didn’t wait for a response. He was in a hurry.
“I haven’t agreed to help you,” I reminded him.
“I want you to capture fingerprints,” he said. “For sure, I need whoever brought you through the fence. Maybe one of your officers?”
“Class leaders,” I corrected.
“Good,” he said. “You have two weeks.”
“But why do you want a Goodhouse print?” I asked. “It’s useless at Mule Creek.”
A terrific clanging noise split the air. The warning bell announced that the line was about to resume. “Get me that print,” he said. “And then maybe you’ll find out.”
The machines started up again. I glanced away and—in that moment—Montero seemed to disappear. For the rest of the shift I stayed vigilant, one eye on the production line and another scanning the periphery of my vision. I thought about the man I’d seen on the shipping floor, the man pointing up at me. A few times I was sure there was someone on the catwalk, but whenever I turned to look, I found myself alone. I was also very aware of the print reader, of the way it gleamed on the cement floor—glossy and white, like a little cube of ice. A few days ago I would have reported Montero, handed over this device. But now I wasn’t sure what to do. I had to consider my situation. The reader would be worth something, and I suspected that if I’d had anything to bribe Davis with on Saturday, I might not be here at all.
At the end of my shift I took a chance and retrieved it. The moment I folded it into my palm, I felt a surge of joy. This was the kind of equipment that proctors used, the sort of device that characterized the adult and civilian world. And I was holding it in my hand. I possessed it. But even as I pulled at a loose thread on my cuff, even as I slipped the reader into the seam, I knew that this impulse was a bad one—that this would be like the barrette, the sort of infraction that only led to more trouble. I told myself that I would just keep it for a few days—I would keep it and then I’d let it go.
Tim was waiting for me at the end of my shift. He stood just outside the door to the Quality Control room. “James,” he said, “everything go all right in there?”
My hand reflexively curled around the cuff of my shirt. I was carrying contraband and I’d just been threatened by a Mule Creek inmate, one who’d appeared and disappeared at will, promising to kill me if I didn’t cooperate. “It was fine,” I said. “Not a problem, sir.”
“An easy assignment,” Tim said, “gives you lots of time to reflect.”
I nodded, unsure what he meant by this. He was staring at me, looking intently, as if he could sense some transgression. “And did you?” he asked. “Did you reflect?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
His hand rested on his Lewiston Volt, on the red taser strapped to his hip. “You boys,” he said. “You memorize the handbook, anticipate the right answer. But none of it,” he said, “goes any further.”
* * *
I had ten minutes to get back to my dormitory. I walked quickly, keeping my head down. Every hundred feet or so, I passed a tall metal pole supporting either a bank of lights, a cluster of speakers, or both. Groups of lower-school boys were gathered around each pole—some boys stood on ladders; all had sanding blocks or plastic scrapers. They were chipping away at loose paint, trying to prepare the surface for a new coat.
The sun was setting. The sky was shot through with the sorts of colors that reminded me of Bethany’s living room and the dresses that the women wore—pinks, dandelion yellows, and silvery blues. Barn swallows rocketed across the sky, hunting bugs, performing aerial loops. Sometimes they moved independently or in a row like a long, undulating ribbon of birds. They switched from chaos to order and back again, their black silhouettes popping out of the horizon and then disappearing into it.
I passed Vargas with its imposing towers, and then the pavilion, which still had the look of a turkey carcass, the roof now partly lowered into place. Two civilian workers in orange hardhats had the building plans spread over the nose of a T-4. They were deeply engrossed in discussion, oblivious to the work details moving past them—dozens of boys loading small but heavy-looking boxes into the cavernous bay of a tractor-trailer. I approached the residential section—long, squat dormitories built on a grid, row after row. As I walked between the buildings, I felt the warmth radiating from each one. Sun had soaked into the concrete all day, and now, when the temperature dropped, the walls gave off heat as if the buildings themselves were alive.
I rounded the corner, hurrying toward North Dormitory 8, but I slowed at the sight of Creighton and Davis standing on the building’s staircase, waiting. A T-4 with two proctors was parked nearby, watching us. There was a bumper sticker on the cart that read I WAS MADE FROM RECYCLED MARITIME PLASTIC!
I walked closer, not slowing my pace. There were no windows at the front of the dormitory, but boys were crowded in the open doorway, watching, anticipating. I acted like I didn’t notice, a strategy that became harder when Creighton and Davis stood directly in front of me at the base of the stairs. Creighton’s blond eyebrows glowed strangely in the twilight. He still favored his good leg, keeping his weight off the one I’d kicked. Davis was eating a green apple. It had a civilian grocery store sticker on the side, so it must have come from an employee. It was a small detail, but the sticker was a display of power.
“Little bird brought me some news,” Davis said.
I took a step forward and tried to pass, but Creighton shoved me back.
“Asshole,” I said, and then I clamped my mouth shut. I hadn’t meant to speak aloud.
Davis smiled. “This one’s getting quite the mouth on him,” he said.
“What do you want?” I stood there, staring past them to the front door. I probably had less than a minute on my AJT.
Creighton pinched my
face in one of his meaty hands and yanked my head down so that I looked directly at him. “That’s better,” he said. “We want to look at that pretty face of yours.” I assumed he was talking about the bruises, which were, a few days after the fact, especially gruesome. “I’m going to take you all the way to the bottom,” he said. “Whenever you fuck up, I’m going to know about it. You understand?”
I nodded.
“So, what happened in there?” Davis asked. He stepped closer, keeping his voice low. “I lost money on you.”
“Good,” I said.
He lunged, lightning quick, and punched me in the ribs. It was the exact spot that I’d bruised. I staggered backward and bent over slightly, trying to breathe against the pain.
“Arms folded,” the proctor said. He sat in the T-4, one foot on the dash. I folded my arms.
“Before you get any big ideas,” Davis said, “before you get all talkative, just remember we’re happy to put you in a cage and leave you there.” His watch beeped. “Look at that.” He smiled. “One demerit.”
“I’ll report you both,” I said. I raised my voice. If they wanted privacy, I wasn’t going to give it to them. “Whatever that place is, it’s not part of the school. It’s illegal.”
“Take your predatory and consider yourself lucky,” Creighton said.
“You can’t shut me up,” I said, though I wasn’t exactly confident. My ribs felt like they were grinding together. I just wanted to crawl into bed. “I’m going to have a lot to say at my hearing.”
“You do that,” Davis said. “Everybody knows you tell the best stories.” And then he slapped me, open-handed, across the cheek. The force of the blow spun me to the side. My ear rang and I tasted blood in my mouth. One of the proctors got out of the T-4 and stood nearby, in case he was needed. “Arms folded,” he said.
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