Antarctica [discontinued

Chapter 4

“Get up, you!” someone called at the door.

            Who was it? Groggily, I opened my eyes only to be blinded by a flash of light directly in my face.

            Damn you, Branden. You could have knocked loudly enough, and I would have gotten up, except that you felt the need to use the external light switch in a perfectly sunlit room.

 Please, ask yourself, Branden, did you really need to do that?

“Get out now!” he yelled.

Maybe I should make him wait.

“Would you please come out?”

What was he planning?

I opened the door. “Was all that screaming necessary?”

“No,” he answered, “but you needed to wake up.”

I had no refute, so he proceeded to drag me down the hallway—either to his office, outside, or the reformatory room.

The reformatory room.

Everyone’s worst nightmare.

I sincerely hoped that wasn’t where I was going.

He threw me onto a chair with barely any padding, and I slumped down, knowing exactly where this was going.

“Tell me,” he said.

“I tried,” I replied. “It’s not a fault of mine if you didn’t understand i—“

I screamed, as the electrical output in the disguised electric chair turned on and…

Dark.

That’s all I know.

That’s all I need to know.

||The Next Day||

Groggily, I sat up on my bed to the bleeping noise, but not only that, the chip had to insert visual signals, practically blinding me before I blinked five times in succession to disable it. Belatedly, I realized that it was morning. On Monday, the first day of our exams. In shock, I remembered that I hadn’t studied at all. What was I thinking? The last thing I remembered was falling asleep…in a white room?

Where?

Why don’t I remember?

<School starts in ten minutes>. The words flashed before my eyes, and the urgency of school overtook the immediate situation of not knowing what had conspired the night before. Was I studying?

I was probably studying. It would explain a lot of things.

The minor annoyance was that I didn’t remember what I had studied the night before.

<School in eight minutes>.

I curse the day that two minute constant reminders were invented. I hurriedly threw clothes on, raced down the stairs to step over broken glass from my parent’s latest bout of drinking, grabbed my backpack, and ran, arriving at school with two minutes to spare. I took my usual seat in the back, but instead of Cassandra’s mass of hair to hide behind during chemistry class, the head directly in front of my face was the head of none other than Chauncey Alvarez.

When had he transferred to Taomiene from Arcadia?

“Um…Chauncey?” I asked tentatively.

“Hey, Candace,” he said, turning around.

“When did you transfer from Arcadia?” I asked.

“Friday,” he said. “I thought you were here.”

Friday? What was it that I didn’t remember?

“Oh, sorry,” I said, intending to end our conversation, “must have slipped my mind.”

He didn’t look satisfied with that, but turned around anyway, sending a ping to my chip.

<Courtyard, after afternoon exams.>

I was about to make the classic “I’m busy” comment, but our chips were disabled as the first question was displayed on the terminals sitting on our desks for exam day.

I read it and immediately began working.

Exams in our school take around three hours per exam. After finishing my Chemistry exam, lunch with Amanda was pretty normal—as expected—although she did keep giving me weird looks. Was there something on my face the entire lunch hour? History exams weren’t difficult either—it looks like I did study, after all.

Or maybe I didn’t and I just remembered everything. But if I did, what explained my low ranking and previously low test scores?

“Candace!” I heard a voice behind me.

“You’re late,” I said, my voice clipped.

“I was expecting that,” he muttered to himself.

Even though I heard it, I asked, “What was that?”

“Nothing,” he replied.

As expected, of course.

“Look,” he said, “I don’t have time for games. I know you heard me when I said it the first time.”

I gulped. How did he know?

“Where were you Friday afternoon?”

“Home,” I bluffed, hoping that he hadn’t called home to ask if I was there.

“I called your parents, and they said you weren’t there,” he replied, unrelenting.

“Think about it,” I continued bluffing, “Should you really trust drunk people?”

“They weren’t drunk,” he said.

“They’re always drunk,” I said it like it meant nothing, although I was the one to clean up the mess.

“Fine,” he conceded. “Oh, and good luck getting a high job, you’re third to last in the rankings, yearly cycle.”

“What?” how was I third to last, of all people? Third to last! I was far smarter than that, wasn’t I? Or am I just flattering myself?

“But you know,” he continued, “if you fly by the exams, you should land in the top twenty, on the yearly cycle, at least.”

“Thanks,” I said, “as if I wasn’t going to do that already.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You sure a high position is what you want?”

“Why are you even asking? Of course I want a high position! Being satisfied for life, doing things for the greater good…”

“The greater good? Wow, the brainwashing is worse here than I initially thought.”

A/N: Yes, I know that it's a short chapter. It really is. I'm disappointed in myself. Anyway, I like the place where I cut it, so no complaining. :P And yes, we get Chauncey's point of view later, but I don't like switching too often, so I'll insert format breaks in a part 1/part 2 format when the time comes. :)

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