Maxwell Huxley's Demon

by Michael Conn

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  Walker sees Virginia cut up the stairs. He knows her schedule , and her next class isn’t up there. She’s going out of her way to avoid me. He shakes his head, knowing that trying to figure her out is impossible .

  He keeps to the middle of the hallway. It’s easier to navigate around all the kids when you’re in the middle. A stream of kids, each with their own goals. Each needing to be somewhere. Walker passes into the physical training section, rooms architected to teach; Judo, Kendo, wrestling, gymnastics, and Yoga. Walker’s favourite room is the agility training maze. Every time you enter the maze it’s different, different obstacles, d ifferent timing required to pass. If you pass, you leave the maze by the green door. If you fail you come back out in this hallway by the red door. If you want to fit in here you better be seen coming out the green door often.

  Walker sees Virginia pop back down onto this floor and quickly slip into the Kendo training room. What if I got it wrong ? What if I am not this strong?

  Chapter 3 –Maxwell

  Max flops down on his bed and wakes his reader. A mechanical clock on his dresser ticks in counter point to the grandfather clock near the exit from the boys' residence. He likes to think of the two clocks as speaking to each other, keeping each other in step. Once the ticking of the clocks en ter s his consciousness, his mind synchronizes with them, uses them, and adds more thoughts into the rhythm. Some days this calms him, some days not. Today is a bad day. Why is it so hard to just be? Why is being Processed so frightening?

  Max reaches into a hole he cut in the mattress and pulls out a cell phone, another tool they won’t let him use. The display reads 0xF1C9. Broken is what that means. His latest attempt to hack the phone failed. More wasted computer lab time. At least he figured out how to program the SIM card.

  Alone in the residence , he feels the whispering thoughts gather and sits up in an attempt to keep them at bay. ‘You’ll never make it. You can’t even hack a phone. You’re stupid and sickly.’

  Tic k .

  Crap ! He lies back again so he can see the sliver of water. He breathes deeply. 1-2-3-4 in . . . 1-2-3-4 out. He tries imagining swimming in the lake.

  Without warning, he find s hi m self looking dow n at a frail boy lying alone on a bed . He feels his chest tighten and pulse race.

  Toc k .

  Fight it! His thoughts spin . . . his temp erature rises. The clock is loud now , and he can smell the lingering odours of the other boys, d irty s ocks to his left , and a banana probably left under a bed far across the room .

  Tic k .

  Get up! He stands, walks to the oval table in the common area , and lean s against the back of a chair. He knows where this bout can end , and he senses the pools of sadness building. It’s not possible to stop the feeling s that wash over him.

  Ne ver make a plan. Life hates plans. My restl essness drove me to seek a way. How can the other kids not try?

  Max pauses at the window and focuses on the water, hoping it will calm him and let him think clearly.

  I thought I needed to crack that phone but getting a hacked SIM card into Dr. Concilian’s phone will work even better. Only two and a half days left . Deadlines help even when you pick random dates. It’s the act of p icking the date that’s motivating, not the date itself . I think Svengaard said t h at.

  Tock.

  The competent make plans, the talented have vision. How can I tell who else here has vision? Who else would trust me? Walk! Walk! Get out of here!

  Max paces . This will pass. This is normal for you . Go with it , and it will end sooner. Max looks at the door, terrorized by the thought tha t someone other than Walker will enter.

  I need to create . I need to destroy . The complexity of creation is equal to the square of the resulting goodness. Max realizes that last thought is not a good sign.

  Walk dammit! Leave the room . Find Virginia. Find Walker .

  Tick.

  Max paces, stepping in time with the clocks. He fails to leave the room.

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  Walker escapes the organic chemistry lecture and searches for Max. He’s nervous. I t’s not usually good when Max misses a lecture. Walker checks Max’s favourite spots first, the lookout tower, the garden, t he pool. This isn’t good. Walker gets worried .

  Walker climbs to the third floor and bursts into the boys’ residence . There he is—p ale, pacing, and muttering. Rats , the one thing I can’t help with. He takes Max by the ar m and leads him from the room. Virginia , find Virginia. Walker drags Max down the hall trying to avoid the doctors. Most of the kids recognize what’s happening and give them space or help hide them from sight if needed. A mass of kids helping one of their own.

  “Virginia . . . has anyone seen Virginia?”

  A six-year -old girl that Walker recognizes from gymnastics , points to the west wing. “Try the gym . . . or she might be in the change room s,” s he says as Walker moves on .

  Walker reaches the girls’ cha nge room and shouts for Virginia . Max mutters nonsense but doesn’t fight staying beside Walker . Charlotte and Julia Robinelle , the twins , come out of the change rooms carrying gym bags and wooden swords, s miling at Walker as they approach . “Charlotte ! Is Virginia in there?” Walker points into the change room. “Can you get her?”

  Charlotte loses her smile. “I just saw her, one sec.” She moves back into the change rooms , keeping her distance from Max. Julia backs away, becoming suddenly very interested in her finger nails, anything to avoid looking at Max.

  Walker turns to Max. “Hold on Max . . . Max?” Walker sighs. Come on Virginia , where are you? After a minute , Virginia comes out of the change room. One glance and sh e understands what’s going on . She takes Max’s arm and pulls him along, stepping into a sports equipment storage room.

  Virginia places her hands on either side of Max’s face. “Oh Max.” Max appears not to notice. His eyes shifting , not meeting hers. “Max, come on, look at me.” Virginia moves her head around until she catches his eyes. “Max!” His eyes connect with hers. He stops muttering , and his face crumbles into sadness. He reaches forward and falls into a hug. Racked with sobs , Max holds on .

  “I’m here,” she whispers.

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  Max follows Virginia back to the door of the boys’ residence. Staying close, looking down, avoiding eye contact with doctors and students alike . Even with Walker there , he can’t let her go. They sit down on the floor in the hall. Max leans on Virginia. Walker waits by the door. A hall monitor walks by. “You’re not supposed to be here .” The moni tor knows Max and guesses what’s happening. “I’ll give you f ive minutes, guys .”

  “Are you there, Max?” Virginia asks, not really expecting an answer.

  I reach out and touch her hair. I breathe.

  How much more will they want? How much more will I do? Walker and Virginia look to me expecting answers .

  Virginia stands up and pulls me up with her. “The observatory?” she asks.

  I nod. Walker keeps a look out as we climb. We climb to my place—t he observatory. This is the only place whe re I can watch the sky and the water . I sit. I rock. I focus on the water, the sliver of blue. I’m aware of Virginia and Walker and their concern. I rock. I struggle within myself, to help myself, to be myself, to heal myself. Not yet, the voices whisper, not yet.

  Chapter 4 –Virginia

  Virginia waits until she thinks everyone else in her residence room is asleep , and then rises , placing her feet quietly on the floor. The last thing she wants right now is one of the other girls asking her what she’s doing. She ’d planned ahead and worn black leggings and a tight fitting top to bed , so now she doesn’t need to get dressed .

  Virginia moves over to the left s ide of the shoulder height head board placing both hands on the top. In one swift motion she pushes down , and her body curls gracefully into a handstand. Her foot touches the suspended ceili ng, eases it aside, then hooks over the top of the residence w all. She pulls and dis appe
ars inside the suspen ded ceiling. The entire departure, from rising out of bed to replacing the ceiling tile behind her, takes only a few seconds .

  I would never have thought to do this, but it feels right .

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  Across t he room from Virginia’s bed, a red haired girl sits up .

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  Virginia crawls above the ceiling tiles until she reaches the steel security wall that separates the residence s from the offices. Walker said t he air exchange is the weak point , he promised her that he c ould shut the fan down, she waits. One minute . Two minutes, she checks the time on her watch. Then sh e hears the fan motor disengage; the blades slow down and eventually stop . She starts moving again , slipping through the fan .

  Deeper in the secure are a , she moves confidently from rafter to rafter. Soon enough , Virginia pu lls up the corner of a ceiling tile and looks down into Dr . Concilian’s office . As Max said there would be, there is a cell phone tethered to a laptop on the desk.

  Virginia ties one end of a thin nylon cord to a structural truss , letting the other end fall toward the surface of the des k. She loops one end around an ankle , lean s back , and fall s upside down. By pointing her toe just right , she control s her descent . As she lowers herself , she puts on thin black gloves .

  Hovering just above the desk, Virginia takes a moment to memorize the exact layout of the phone, tethering cord, and placement of both beside the laptop .

  Too bad there’s no one here to see me do this.

  She slide s farther down the cord, reaches the phone, cracks it open, pulls out the SIM card, and pops it into the waist band of her leggings. She wipe s sweat from her forehead, fearing a drop of sweat would mar the surface of the perfectly clean desk top and alert Dr. Concilian of a break in when he returns to his office . She takes the replacement SIM card out and load s it into the cell phone. Now she has to restart the phone in order for Walker ’s code to inject itself.

  Virginia hears footsteps from outside the office and then see s a l ight shine through the small wi n dow in the office door . Virginia waits for the phone to restart . . . Come on, hurry up ! . . . The lights get brighter and the footsteps get louder.

  The phone finishes restarting . Unfortunately , it makes a loud chime as it does so. Virginia pauses , listening to see if the footstep s quicken. They don’t, so s he snaps open the phone, rips out the SIM card and jams the original one back in. Then she powers down the phone again , and places it ba ck on the desk , tethered to the PC, exactly how she found it, making the tether snake across the desk just as it was before she touched it.

  Vir ginia pulls hersel f up into the ceili ng as the office door opens without allowing her time to get the cei ling panel fully back in place. She presses herself as f ar as she can into the shadows. He better be quick . Below her Dr. Concilian walks to his desk, the light from the room shines on Virginia’s face. Her hand slips , causing her shoulder and head to drop slightly down and to the right. An exposed end of snipped alumi num support bar slices her temple. Dr. Concilian picks up his cell phone, disconnects it. The blood from the cut runs over her chee k and down to the tip of her nose. If a drop falls at this angle it will either hit Dr. Concilian or land on the desk. Either way it’s a disaster.

  Virg inia supports her full weight on one arm and one leg by str e t ch ing out an arm and pushing ba ck hard with one leg. With her free foot she snags the far end of the ceiling tile and slides it slightly fo rward, just in time for her blood to land on the edge of the tile , stopping it from falling down in the office . I can’t wait, the air exchange might start up again.

  The re is a knock on Dr . Concilian’s office door. Dr. Co ncilian opens the door. “Naomi?—w hat is it?”

  “You told me to let you know if I ever saw anything unusual.”

  While Dr. Concilian is distracted by Naomi, Virginia closes the tile completely. That little rotter.

  Virginia hurries, literally swinging from support to support, s ometimes needing to hold her body completely horizontal so she can pass obstacles. She races to make it back to the air exchange in time . But also keeping in mind that she has to get back into bed before Naomi leads Dr. Concilian there.

  Moving r apidly above the false ceiling , she sees the air exchang e about twenty metres away. It’s already stopped. Oh snap ! This means that it could start back up at any time. She calms her mind and slips it into neutral , letting her body take over, h er muscles doin g the ‘thinking’ for her. She speeds through the confined space, hurling herself of f each support beam and f inally launching herself f eet first at the air exchange.

  As she flies toward the air exchange it starts up again. Her body flex es, feet passing over the moving blade first, then a half twist with an arched back . A fan blade spinning up to speed narrowly misses her head .

  Virginia catches hold of support on the other side of the air exchange , holding on to keep from falling through the ceiling tiles . The blade spins up to full speed , ripping a lock of hair out of her head. She retrieves the lock of severed hair from the spinning blade and moves on. That’s my hair; I won’t have some guard collecting it as evidence. I feel like an animal, b red to put on a show, a captive trained monkey. Then Max came along, he paid attention, I found a group , and I had a few h appy years . Now, I’m performing for Max. I hate performing. I love performing.

  Near her bed , s he slips down out of the ceilin g and places her feet on her head board , t hen drops silently to the floor. Perfection and no one will ever see it. Virginia goes into the bath room to deal with the cut. It’s not very deep but is bleeding quickly. She cleans the wound whic h is actually two parallel cuts. Then she skids back to her bed , getting in just as a light comes on in the hallway outside the residence . She calms herself, forcing her breathing back to normal. Lights outside the residence door come on . She hears footsteps coming from the corridor and waits for the door to open. It never does.

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  Back in his office, Dr. Concilian makes a call which carries Max and Walker’s code across a firewall , into the school’s systems and onto the external cellular network. He tethers the phone to his laptop again, leaving the cord in the most pleasing winding path across the desk and to the laptop. He look s around his office, one last check to see if anything is out of order , and t hen he retires to his chambers.

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  Max, Walker , and Virginia don’t sleep much this night.

  Max and Walker stay up late coding the next ve rsions of electrons and protons. Coding provides an activity to stop them from w orry ing about Virginia and also to stop them from thinking about the world outside the wall. Max dozes off reading . When the alarm finally goes off at seven , Max and Walker sprint d own the hall to find Virginia. The first do orl ock palm—reader Max encounters flashes red at him , the y hear the familiar female voice. “Report to Dr. Concilian’s office.”

  “Crap. I don’t wanna talk this morning!” Max’s shoulders slump .

  Walker sympathizes. “Sorry dude . . . I’ll find Virginia , and we’ll me et up in math class.”

  Max turn s left , and Walker goes straight .

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  Max sits in the little chair tryi ng to feel calm . Dr. Concilian takes his time s canning his book shelf. Max looks out the large window overlooking the school gardens. As nice as the gar dens are , the wall beyond them ruins the view .

  “Ah, there it is.” Dr . Concilian takes a copy of SAS Survival Handbook: For Any Climate, in Any Situation off the shelf and then sits down opposite Max. “So . . .” Dr. Concilian pauses, leafing through the book.

  Max can tell he’s somewhere near the beginning. “Why are we playing games ?”

  “I don’t know. I’m waiting to see how you make sense out of this one.” Dr. Concilian holds e ye contact with Max. Max’s eyes wander , not able to take the pressure. “So every morning I receive a status report from the security guys here. Any idea what I found in last night’s report?”

  “A failsafe syst
em in the duct work between the residence s and the inner security area was triggered, twice , shutting down the air exchange for two minute s each time .”

  “Go on.” Dr. Concilian leans back in his chair ready to listen.

  Max brings him up to date on everything.

  “Why are you telling me this Max?”

  “Because it doesn’t matter what I tell you anymore. Because I know you don’t believe me anyway, you believe I’m delusional, but not dangerous, and you’ll feel sorry fo r me and put me back in class. Then when you grade my latest math exam you’ll feel justifi ed in keeping me in the system. And y ou’ll have to keep me in because I’m the b rightest star you’ve ever had. That’s why I need to keep my scores up. So I don’t get tossed o ut , and so you look good. Did I get that about right?”

  Dr . Concilian appears concerned for a second then resumes hi s superior look. “You know, we’re all smart here , Max. And even smart people make mistakes. You’re not well , Max. I saw yo u on security video from yesterday. You didn’t look so good in your residence . Is Virginia your only safe person?”

  “No . . . Yes . . . that’s not fair , recording my life. Are you trying to make me leave faster?” Max stands . This time he feels the band tighten across his chest.

  “Max these are simple questions. Please sit and talk.”

  “Can I go to class now?” Max stares at his feet.

  Dr. Concilian gets up and opens the door for Max, “Of course.”

  Max walks to the door.

  “One last thing , Max .”

  Max stops and turns around.

  “Take this.” Dr. Concilian hands Max the survival book. “You won’t survive outside the school walls without it.”

  Max takes the book and leaves .

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  Naomi can hardly stay awake. Mr. Tan agachi , the martial arts instructor drones on in the middle of the mat . Listing the Japanese names for the patterns they are working on this week. Me too. I deserve better. I need a pod—a group—a gang. I need my sister back. Naomi feels Roger preparing to pass her a note. Before he taps her on the shoulder, she puts her hand on her shoulder palm up , so Roger can place the note in it.