Always/Never

Chapter 27 / Silver-Suited

I gritted my teeth, set my phone on the lecturer's podium, and counted every piece of technology I would have wielded like a weapon.

Two cameras. One eyeing the front of the room and one by the back. Three flat television screens used by professors to make their slideshows readable to a class of over thirty students. Two phones. Mine and the emergency line branched into the wall, pasted top to bottom with numbers to call, in order of severity. And one vision board beside an under-utilized whiteboard, its dry-erase markers strewn below. Rory's laptop, prim and perched at the table.

I controlled the wireless mouse to log in while Accha inspected the camera before us, hovering a few feet off the floor. It was a pointless task for both of us, but so be it.

If she thinks she can pacify him, why not try?

My hand gripped the mouse. And the table. The vision board's rippled screen turned black as it booted up. My shadow and Accha's were wisps in the smudges, barely indistinguishable from the smatter of sunlight and the curves of the seats. For a second, the reflection was Rory, but it was also Ridge, and however many superpositions of me existed in the universe. It was me, and my shadow, like fingerprints in the glass. Like sunflowers in a field.

Copenhagen theory. Until we are observed, all we are is infinite possibilities overlapping.

"Ready," Accha said, stepping beside the podium.

"Ready. Right."

I opened the laptop. Though, Parkland's voice didn't immediately crackle through the speakers. Out of some sick sense of pettiness, my files were either purged or moved around, and a document executed that simply read, 'Don't be so rude.'

Like I was going to listen to him.

"It would be nice if he doesn't come back," I said. Maybe he thought, oh well, I had my tantrum, so that's it for me. Now I've cooled off.

Accha didn't dare to let her stone-faced mask slip. "There's nothing at Beaumont he could use to..."

"To..." I echoed, prompting her to continue.

"You know." She pointed out the window. "Hurt you. There's no way inside the system."

A flicker of birds outside crossed through the clouds. The beep of car horns had faded to two or three that had yet to be handled. Students wearing track jerseys flocked around the side door that led to the main building, holding their keys like beacons.

I whirled around. "He's locking people out."

"That doesn't answer what I wanted to... he's what?" She stomped over to the window, sticking her head through the hole.

In the hallway, an alarm tripped. I recoiled as the shrill sound reverberated within my skull, combining with the car alarms and the shouts of the track students.

"I'll go!" Accha's voice was lost in the cacophony, but I could see it in her eyes.

Not an instant later, she leaped from the roof and glided to the ground.

I pulled away from the window to face the camera. Think, Rory. What would I do next? If he had admin permission figured out, the alarm was probably the one for isolation drills. Which meant he'd turned off the alert that would usually have called the police—so even if I used the line beside me, it would lead nowhere.

If I wanted revenge, I would have given myself a taste of my own methods. By sifting through everything until I found something to expose and make me lose my enrolment, the same way he was going to lose his job.

Which meant I didn't have to interfere with his system, but with the spiderweb that was the university's network.

Let's play chess, Parkland.