Extracted

Lillian

Cecelia takes me to my first class after the lunch period, then leaves, going to her own class. Regardless of her chatty sparkling personality, I’m a little nervous without her guidance in this environment.

But Lillian and Geoffrey are in this class and show me how to key into my tablet. It’s not like any electronic device I’ve ever seen before, not even on commercials. Geoffrey pulls up my schedule and a simple map of where each classroom is, which is helpful since none of the doors are marked with numbers or anything. As soon as no one’s watching I’m going to search for texting or email capabilities. The sense of relief at having that option in my hands and the probability of getting out of here once I make contact with my parents relaxes me more than I’ve been since I woke up. I run through possible ways to phrase what’s been going on, imagining their shock at hearing from me. They have to be worried sick.

This class is multivariable calculus and matrix algebra.Together. Lovely. I’m thrilled to start off with my worse subject ever. Any kind of mathematics. I don’t even know what multivariable calculus is. Can’t wait. Next is languages. Not Spanish. Or French. Or Italian. But apparently all three. They’ve got to be kidding. Last is two hours of training in Gymnasium B. I’m getting warm fuzzies all over at this wonderful schedule while wondering how I got put into these higher education courses and what the process is to get transferred into some ordinary subjects. I mean, geez. Did they have no access to my former transcripts? Oh, right. Katherine must be one of those overachiever types. At least I won’t have to worry about it too long once my parents come for me.

The instructor comes in. Surprise, surprise, a man in a—wait for it—black suit. His is not a uniform like Helena and the cafeteria monitors wear, but more business casual, trousers and sweater.

He taps his own tablet and immediately all of ours load to a page of equations on a mathematical scale that makes my eyes begin to glaze over and my brain hurt.

The instructor starts explaining the process. I tilt my head, and…wait a minute, this stuff kind of makes sense. I scroll across the page, taking in several equations and formulas. It makes a whole lot of sense. I go through the problems, forming numbers and answers, possibilities in my head like a mathematical genius. This stuff isn’t hard at all. It’s like my brain cells suddenly tripled and showed me another way to look at these numerical codes. I whiz through the page, tapping in solutions that get stored in the tablet’s systems.

I’m awesome. I could do this all day. Before I know it, the page tabs off and it’s time to find my next class. I’m almost disappointed. I was on a roll. Who knew I had the makings of a mathlete?

Lillian tugs on my arm. “Come on. You know where your next subject is?”

“Uh, yeah, language. Across the hall to the right.”

“All right.” She nods, then adds tentatively, “I’ll see you tomorrow at lunch?”

“Sure.” I smile for her. Where else could I go? It seems the school has us on a pretty structured schedule. Until I get hold of Mom and Dad.

It turns out I have an ear for German. I identify the subtext and am able to stress the focus of the sentence readily and repeat back the nuances of the dialect with perfection like I’m fluent. Stress the focus of the sentence? Geez, listen to me. I’m better than some of the other students, but not by much. We could all step into any German city today and manage our way around.

It’s weird, like the illness unlocked a part of our brains that lets us absorb learning in ways I couldn’t imagine before. I kind of wish I had paid more attention to what the director was saying about the side-effects to our neurons and stuff. Short-circuited our memories, but boasted our smarts. Except…my brow wrinkles. I retained my memories.

I’m AnnaLee, not Katherine. Okay, I’ve become super smart overnight, but I’m still me. AnnaLeeAnnaLeeAnnaLee. I won’t forget myself.

My next class is some kind of training in the gymnasium. Here the fun really begins. The floor is set up like a military training course of horror. I’m ushered into a locker room where one of the adults hands each of us a red sweat suit. The contrast is bright against the constant gray. There are no changing rooms or separation between boys and girls so I turn to face the row of lockers and change as quickly as I can, bottoms first and then my top, and head out to the gym.

It’s broken up into stations, each with a couple of teachers, or more likely coaches, tablets at the ready to mark scores.

There’s a ropes course, knife throwing area, punching bags, some kind of wooden blocks area, and several mats where students are pairing up and beginning to spar. Is this for real? It’s less P.E. and more Combat Training 101.

And these kids aren’t playing around. There are students from all the age groups here. There are two other gymnasiums, A and C on the map, and I imagine the same type of exercises going on in both of them.

A small boy scurries up a hanging rope like a monkey and then swings along the bars. A brown haired girl throws a guy twice her size down on the mats, where he in turn tosses her yards away like she weighs nothing.

A pair of boys go at each other with long poles, clacking at each hit. Their strikes are so swift they seem blurred. Unease raises goose pimples at the back of my neck.

I see Mitchell. He’s throwing knives at a stuffed dummy. Every strike hits a vital spot marked in black. Head, heart, stomach.

I make my way toward him, and suddenly Cecelia is at my side. “The trainers want to test your strengths. Report to the ropes course.”

I glance around at the precision and strength that the other students are demonstrating. I hope the trainers are able to handle disappointment well because, athletic I am not.

I wait for another guy to finish the course, craning my head back to watch how he does it, where he places his hands and feet. It’s a climb up the ladder about twenty feet to horizontal bars, then across a single rope to a platform where you have to make your body swing across two yards of space and grab hold of a second set of horizontal bars before climbing down a fake rock wall with tiny handholds. The course is totally dependent on upper body strength, which has never been something I’ve had an abundance of and I doubt Katherine’s slight form has much of either.

Though looking at that course, I’m not sure Tyler would make it through his first try either. It’s pretty intimidating.

The thought of Tyler sends a jolt through me and I see his angry frown. I was driving the truck. Tyler was on the passenger side with Jeremy between us.

“We’re through,” I shout, clenching the steering wheel.

“Yeah, right. You said that last week.”

“I mean it this time.”

“You’ll come crawling back.”

I take my eyes off the road. “No, not this time. I’m done.”

“’Cause I smacked your brother a bit? Get over it, Anna. Runt needs to toughen up.”

Jeremy looks up at me with wide eyes, the shadow of a bruise forming on his upper arm beneath the edge of his sleeve. No, there was no way I was having anything to do with Tyler after that. He’s a bully, always has been. I just didn’t want to see it. “He’s half your size.”

“Exactly, the smaller you are, the tougher you have to—”