by Tim Floreen
I eased back in my seat and pretended to wipe a smudge from my glasses with my sleeve while I tried to think of something to say. Making conversation wasn’t one of my strong points. “Where are you from?”
“Chile,” he answered.
I loved the way he said it: CHEE-lay. I searched my brain for an intelligent comment about the country, but I couldn’t even remember if it was in Central America or South America.
“What’s she doing?” He pointed at Bex, who’d started murmuring into her puck.
“Taking notes for an article,” I said. “She’s the editor of the school news site. Or was, at least. She just got fired.”
“Silenced,” she corrected without looking over.
“Ouch,” Nico said. “What happened?”
“She wrote a feature about how the school board’s thinking of making Inverness Prep boys-only again. Called it part of a national trend of rolling back women’s rights. Blamed the problem on the whole Human Values Movement thing.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“The headmaster didn’t think so,” I said. “He had the article taken down seventeen minutes after it went up.”
“But she’s still writing?”
“You bet I am,” Bex said.
“The day after she was fired—sorry, silenced—she started her own news site: the Inverness Prep Free Press.”
“Good for you,” Nico told Bex. He nodded at the stage. “I guess that means you aren’t going to like what our special guest has to say.”
“I don’t expect to, no.” She let go of her puck and turned to him. “Nico, what the hell is happening to this country? As someone with an outside perspective, can you shed any light on that question?”
He seemed to think she’d just made a joke, because he let out another inappropriately loud laugh.
“I’m serious,” Bex said. “Ever since Human Values started picking up steam, America has gone backward at least a hundred years. I’m not just talking about women’s rights, either.”
“What about you, Lee? Do you have similar feelings?”
My eyes drifted to the empty podium. I shrugged. “I’m not really into politics.”
Nico followed my gaze. “I heard Fisher’s son goes to school here too.”
“As a matter of fact—” Bex began.
I knocked my foot against hers. “He’s around here somewhere.”
Headmaster Stroud made his way onto the stage, his limp noticeable, but barely. He gripped the podium and, without saying a word, waited for silence to fall. A risky tactic in a room full of kids, but for him it always worked.
“Good morning, students, faculty, alumni, and guests. Today we celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of this institution. I know this place means a lot to many of you. It certainly means a lot to me. The lessons I learned as a student here made me the man I am today. In fact, I believe they saved my life.”
Everybody knew exactly what he meant. My grandfather’s story had already become an Inverness legend—an especially gruesome one. Long before he was the school’s headmaster, he’d joined the US Marine Corps along with his best friend from Inverness, George Fisher (i.e., my dad’s father; i.e., my other grandfather). The two of them got shipped off to battle terrorists in the Middle East. The terrorists captured them, held them prisoner for nine years, beat them and tortured them that whole time. In the end, Grandfather Fisher died, but Grandfather Stroud escaped . . . by using the titanium thighbone he’d dug out of his best friend’s dead body to club his captors to death. Stroud returned to America a hero, earned a degree in education, and went to work at his alma mater. Even though the beatings had mangled his body, whenever we students saw him, he was always holding his back ramrod straight—probably something he’d learned in the military, but I liked to imagine he’d picked up the habit after all those years sitting in Inverness Prep’s excruciating auditorium seats.
“To mark this occasion,” Stroud continued, “we’ve invited a special guest to speak: my son-in-law, and one of Inverness Prep’s most celebrated alumni.”
Down in front, the FUUWLs jumped up and cheered. Pretty soon the rest of the crowd was on its feet too. Bex stood, but only so she could see better, her mouth twisted into a dubious frown. She waved her puck higher, as if she thought it might catch something the news cameras would miss. On my other side, Nico whispered, “Here we go.” He’d broken into that sly grin of his, revealing two slightly crooked front teeth. I noticed the color of his eyes, too—light brown, with little threads of gold that reminded me of the glowing filaments in old-fashioned lightbulbs—and my heart sped up again.
The next second, out walked my dad, the president of the United States.
3
If you squinted just right, we looked sort of alike, Dad and I. The big ears worked on him, though. His glasses had lightweight silver frames that seemed to bring his eyes forward instead of hide them. His black hair had gone gray at the temples, just enough to make him look distinguished. And his face was always ready to crease into a smile, while I smiled so rarely, I could barely locate the required muscles when I did. Still, people commented all the time on our resemblance. I prayed Nico wouldn’t notice.
Speaking of which, I had no idea why I’d told such a stupid lie. Nico was bound to find out who I was, probably before the end of the assembly. It was just that I hardly ever met people who hadn’t already seen my picture on the Supernet. Maybe Chileans didn’t care about American politics. If Nico hadn’t seen my picture, did that mean he hadn’t read the stories about me either? The write-ups on the gossip sites with headlines like LEAP FISHER’S STUNT SENDS DAD’S CAMPAIGN INTO FREE FALL? But I knew he’d find out about them soon enough too.
Dad had to wait a long time for everybody to sit down. He was popular at Inverness Prep. Light-years more popular than I was. He wouldn’t come up for reelection for another two years, but even so, this assembly had the schmoozy, electric feel of a campaign rally. From time to time, Dad noticed people he knew in the crowd and tossed them a wink, a salute, a friendly nod. He always did that. Sometimes I wondered if he pretended, just picking faces at random to acknowledge.
“When this great school was founded three hundred years ago,” he began, “people lived in a very different world. They didn’t have cars. They didn’t have computers. And they certainly didn’t have anything like 2B technology. But they did have values. The world has changed a lot over the past three centuries. Those values haven’t.”
Dad had a way of giving speeches that reminded me of those wise fathers you saw in movies as they sat down with their children and passed along some important life lesson. He’d speak in a hushed voice, and he’d nod slowly, and you could almost hear the sappy strings playing in the background.
“Several of this school’s earliest students went on to become Founding Fathers. Those great men thought deeply about what it meant to be human. They recognized that man had been endowed by his Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that the purpose of government was to safeguard those rights. From this simple premise, a distinctly American system of values emerged.”
My mind drifted. At that moment what I really wanted to do was steal another glance at Nico’s brown eyes, but I didn’t dare, so I looked to my right instead. Bex watched Dad, her mouth puckered, her fingers absently stroking her earlobe with its three small holes. That was another of her grievances against Headmaster Stroud: she had several piercings in each ear and one in her nose, but Stroud had recently restricted female students to one small earring per ear. She still wore her other earrings and nose ring while she slept as a small act of rebellion, and also to keep the holes from closing up. Meanwhile, I had a feeling her combat boots and smudgy black eye makeup would be the next items on the chopping block.
She released a quiet groan. Dad had just begun listing the values for which he believed America stood, among them family, tradition, men and women “free and equal, but respectful of the roles that society and their Creator ha
d set out for them.”
A finger tapped my left arm. “That girl’s something else.” Even through his whisper, I could make out the lilt of Nico’s accent.
“Bex sort of goes into an altered state whenever people around her start talking politics,” I whispered back.
“Are you two . . .?” He hiked up an eyebrow.
“Together? No, just friends.” I straightened my glasses. Because I felt like I should as Bex’s friend—and because the masochistic part of me wanted to see how he’d respond—I added, “She’s single. And really cool, when the president of the United States isn’t in the room. You want her puck handle or something?”
Nico laughed and shook his head. “No, I didn’t mean it that way.”
A FUUWL sitting one row ahead of us turned and directed a scorching glare in his direction.
He leaned closer, so I could feel the warm tickle of his breath on my ear. “To tell you the truth, you’re the one I’d like to get a handle on.”
The FUUWL whirled around again and pressed a finger to his mouth. Meanwhile, like the Walking Walk-In I was, I freaked. My eyes darted to the podium.
“Over the years,” Dad was saying, “we Americans have always defended ourselves against those who threatened the sanctity of our traditional values.”
I could’ve sworn he was looking straight at me as he spoke. A vision filled my mind: I pictured that glass body-scan booth appearing around me right there in the middle of the auditorium, with the red light flashing over my head and all the news cameras and pucks in the room swiveling to point in my direction. I shrank into the hard wooden seat, suddenly certain that Dad and everyone else in the room knew my secret. They’d seen me sitting here, letting myself be flirted with by an avowed traditional-values-threatening homosexual, and somehow they knew the truth about me.
“Now our country faces a new threat.” Dad’s fatherly voice had taken on a sterner tone. “Now we have to take a harder look than ever at what it means to be human. Seven years ago the world saw the creation of the first 2B. A short while later we all found out how dangerous this new technology could be.” He paused, and his silence conveyed what he didn’t need to say out loud: that he’d experienced that danger firsthand. “In response, a new movement was born, and a new political party, too. The Human Values Party nominated me as its first candidate for president. After my election, I saw to it that Congress passed legislation outlawing 2B technology, and I inaugurated a sixth branch of the United States Armed Forces, the Cybernetic Defense Corps.”
Behind Dad, all the way at the end of the row of faculty, Dr. Singh sat there like a crumpled-up piece of paper and stared at the floor. The index and middle fingers of her right hand tapped against the arm of her wheelchair, probably yearning for a Camel to hold.
“But our efforts haven’t gone far enough,” Dad said. “Just last month, we all had a reminder of that.”
He turned to a screen behind him. On it appeared aerial footage of the Statue of Liberty. Or what was left of her. Her head and upraised right arm had disappeared, replaced by a geyser of flame erupting from her mangled torso. Instead of holding up a torch, she’d become one, lighting the nighttime New York skyline a nightmarish orange. Of course, I’d seen this footage already. Everybody there had. Most news sites hadn’t shown anything else for a month. Twenty-seven days ago a commercial courier drone had been hacked and steered into the statue. Murmurs flowed through the audience: even after four weeks, the image hadn’t lost its power.
“It’s awful,” Bex whispered to me, “but considering what’s happening to this country, I have to say the symbolism fits.”
In my case, though, the footage barely registered. Sitting next to Nico in those narrow seats, I could’ve sworn I felt heat radiating from his body everywhere it came close to mine—as if he were the one on fire. I noticed my knee was almost touching his, and suddenly my leg felt agonizingly uncomfortable in that position, but I didn’t want to move because I worried he might think it meant something, like that I’d noticed my knee was almost touching his. I still couldn’t wrap my mind around what had just happened. Had he really come on to me? He’d made it look so easy—just like that handstand. And what the hell was I supposed to say back?
“Fortunately, no one died,” Dad said as the screen faded to black behind him. “If the attack had happened only a few hours earlier, when the statue had been open to the public, hundreds would have lost their lives. But the savagery of this assault on one of America’s most beloved monuments nevertheless left us shocked and horrified. Following the attack, major news outlets received another message from Charlotte demanding the release of the five remaining 2Bs. Now I want to make this very clear.” He paused. He always did that when he had some important point to make—created a magnetic silence that pulled you forward in your seat while you waited to hear what he’d say next. “The rumor that the United States government is keeping those five 2Bs operational and imprisoned is false. They were destroyed seven years ago. My predecessor saw to that personally.”
He fell silent again. Everybody leaned a fraction of an inch closer. Over the past few days rumors had flown around the Supernet that Dad would make some important announcement during his speech. I didn’t know what the announcement would be any more than anyone else, but I could tell he’d just about worked himself up to making it. For a while I forgot about my agonizingly uncomfortable left leg and bent forward just like the rest of the audience.
“Beyond reiterating that the US government is not holding any 2Bs in custody,” Dad said, “I have not negotiated with Charlotte. It is the policy of this administration never to negotiate with terrorists. Especially when they aren’t even alive. The tireless men and women of our Cybernetic Defense Corps are doing everything they can to find Charlotte and wipe her—it—off the face of the planet. And today I’d like to propose another important measure: the Protection of Humanhood Amendment, which would add to the Constitution a provision defining a legal person as an individual of the species Homo sapiens. I urge our Congress and the fifty states of our Union to pass it with all possible speed. The power to create life rests solely with our Creator. We must ensure that our laws reflect this fact, and that they continue to protect the inalienable rights with which our Creator endowed us. Thank you.”
The FUUWLs jumped to their feet again. The sound of cheering crashed through the auditorium. Dad smiled, his eyes crinkling behind his silver glasses, and raised one hand in an understated wave.
“God bless America.”
Bex gave me the same searching, baffled look she always did when we happened to see one of Dad’s speeches on the Supernet. It said, How can that guy be your father? I could still feel the possibly imaginary wafts of heat emanating from Nico, but I didn’t have the courage to turn in his direction.
The applause finally subsided. Headmaster Stroud returned to the podium and dismissed us to our second-period classes. The noise in the auditorium boiled up again as everybody crowded toward the aisles. I’d started to follow Bex when I felt a hand on my arm.
“Hey,” Nico said. “Sorry if I came on a little strong. I shouldn’t have just asked you for your handle out of the blue like that.”
I darted a glance over my shoulder. Bex had already reached the aisle. She raised her eyebrow a tick. I motioned for her to go ahead. “So that was what you were doing? Asking me for my handle?”
Nico turned on his grin. “Sorry, did I not make that clear?”
Usually when I saw a grin that big on people, it made me want to shake them and ask them what there was to be so damn happy about. But not with Nico. His grin just made my knees feel squishy. “Look, I know you’re new here and from another country and whatever, but you don’t just start making moves on another boy in a place like Inverness Prep. Especially not while the president of the United States is in the very same room giving a speech about the need to stomp out threats to traditional human values.”
He took a step closer. “That only made it
hotter.”
My pulse quickened like a Geiger counter at his approach. “Who are you? Where’s your normal, healthy, paralyzing teenage insecurity?”
“Probably trumped by my Latin American audacity.” He opened his hands. “If I’m barking up the wrong tree, you can just tell me.”
I pushed my chunky black glasses up my nose. My shirt collar felt tighter than ever. Part of me knew I should just tell him, Yes, you’re barking up the wrong tree, and walk away. I sometimes called that side of my psyche Gutless Lee. But another part of me—the part I called Kamikaze Lee—wanted me to sink my fingers into his big, wild mop, pull him close, and whisper my handle into his ear.
Instead, I did neither of those things and said, “You tied your tie wrong.”
He touched the blue-black silk. “Excuse me?”
“That’s a single Windsor. At Inverness Prep, all students are supposed to tie their ties in double Windsor knots. You’ll get in trouble if you’re caught with your tie like that. Also, your tiepin is upside down.”
His fingers moved to his silver raven tiepin. Every student received one after enrolling at Inverness Prep. “Only when I’m not doing a handstand.”
“True.”
“I don’t know how to tie a double Windsor knot.”
I looked around the auditorium. A few suits lingered here and there muttering into their pucks, and a few technicians had started packing lighting equipment into big metal boxes, but almost all the students had left. I glanced up. No more news cameras hovering over our heads. “I’ll do it for you,” I said. “If you want.”
That grin again. Goofy and sly and dangerous, all at the same time. He drew close and pulled open his gray tweed blazer, wafting a scent in my direction: coconuts. Like he’d just stepped off a Chilean beach. Chile did have beaches, didn’t it?
My mind scrambled around, doing quick calculations. What message had I sent by offering to tie his tie? Did it mean the same thing as giving him my puck handle? Had I crossed some line of no return yet? I reached out and unfastened his upside-down silver raven.
