"Tsk-tsk," he clucks. "I assure you that names will never hurt me, Wisteria. Now," he says, swiping the broken drumstick out of her hands before turning to leave, "somebody come and get these two ready for the school bus!"
Chapter 49
Wisty
ALL RIGHT, so I'll admit it. There was a very small part of me-the dream-big girl who'll cling to any hope no matter how many times she's been crushed by the cruel heel of life-that hoped we were headed to some sort of spa.
I mean, I wasn't expecting a mani-pedi while drinking a seltzer with lime, but I let myself imagine something low-key, like being a quarantined tuberculosis patient at a convalescent hospital, sitting on a porch wrapped in a blanket, staring out at the countryside.
But that was the very, very old days, and this was a very, very new world. As noted by the name of this facility.
"Welcome to the Brave New World Center," intones a disembodied female voice as we step into the brightly lit, ultraclean entryway of our new home. Stun guns are planted firmly in the smalls of our backs.
"Please prepare to watch the Brave New World Center Onboarding Video," continues the voice. She sounds like a computer-designed voice-over-a little too perfectly modulated. With any luck, maybe she'll shut up and we'll start watching calming videos of waterfalls and rain forests, or maybe she'll conduct mind-body relaxation exercises.
This whole place actually looks more sanitary than a hospital-white glossy floors, white glossy walls, white glossy ceilings. "What gives?" I ask Whit. "I thought there was a New Order law that said they always had to put kids in filthy hellholes."
"Clean hellholes apparently will work in a pinch," says Whit.
"Who knew? I'm waiting for my white terry-cloth robe and fuzzy slippers."
"Shut up!" barks one of the guards behind us.
The lights go down as orchestral, soundtrack-style music fills the room, and the wall in front of us lights up with images. The disembodied female voice comes back. "Congratulations on your admittance to the Brave New World Center," she says. "The most advanced facility of its kind in all of the Overworld, dedicated to the nurturing of young dynacompetents. Built in the Year 0001 A.O., the BNW Center features the latest in new technology and employs the best pedagogical program ever devised for unlocking scalable kinetic potentials and directing them into a life of fully compliant productivity."
My eyes are glazing over already. Maybe she is inducing hypnosis…
The screen plays a video tour of the immaculate hallways, classrooms, lecture halls, cafeterias, and dormitory rooms that presumably await us beyond this reception chamber. Everything reeks of sterility.
"The curriculum features twenty-four-hour audio- and video-based instruction." The screen flashes images of hundreds of different speakers and monitors-in the corners of ceilings, along walls, in desks, in headboards. "In this way, lessons will continue uninterrupted-even during sleep. Ninety-nine point three percent of students find they are able to absorb enough information and behavioral training to evolve to the second level in less than two weeks."
"Big whoop," I hear Whit mutter. "Dogs in obedience school do better than that."
I start to snigger until he suddenly yells, "Ouch!" and jerks his hand up in the air. From out of nowhere a small robotic thingy has scooted up and smacked his knuckles with a long yellow bar that looks suspiciously like a ruler. Maybe it's a stun gun.
"And," continues the woman, "as a means of ensuring that the BNW Center remains a one hundred percent optimized learning environment, you will find in place a system of corrective negative feedback stimuli for any disruptive or wasteful behaviors. No student has ever been released from the Center without complete mastery of the core curriculum!"
"I'm still waiting for my aromatherapy treatment," I whisper to Whit.
"Your what-atherapy?" he whispers back.
Thwack! Thwack! Zoomba, the little robot thingy, is back with its stick.
Now Whit and I are both sucking our knuckles. So much for my spa fantasy.
"This concludes the Onboarding Video. Again, welcome and congratulations on your admittance to the Brave New World Center. Won't you have a chocolate?"
The little robot in front of us has lost the ruler and is now holding a tray with two chocolates on it.
Okay, so my spa dream is back in play!
I guess if they wanted to poison us, they could have done it already, and I'm not sure I care either way at this point.
I pick one up and-OMG-it's the best-tasting thing I've ever had inside my mouth. I'm seriously about to collapse in a heap of unending lip smacks and mmmms when the door in front of us clicks and in walks… Byron Swain.
Chapter 50
Wisty
"HEY, GUYS," says Byron, weaseling up to me and Whit with an air of, I don't know… there's something slightly off about him. Dejection, maybe? "They told me to come… welcome you."
"How'd you get here?" I say, with a tone wavering between disgust and bafflement.
"Does it matter?" asks Whit, glaring at Byron and nudging me. "We're all here now." And I think I know why: to defeat the New Order from the inside.
I notice that Byron's practically swimming in his all-white jumpsuit, as if it's a hand-me-down costume carelessly pulled off a pile rather than carefully selected.
Suddenly I realize Byron might be on a mission to free us. Better be nice to the guy. "Cool outfit, B.," I comment, then decide that I'm not a good liar. "You look ridiculous."
"It's the school uniform," he tells us. "You'll have yours as soon as you get decontaminated."
"Decontaminated?"
"Cleanliness is next to Oneliness," says Byron. The guy has no sense of sarcasm about him. Makes him impossible to figure out.
"So the brainwashing's going pretty good with you, huh?" I ask.
"It's not so bad," replies Byron kind of listlessly. "There's chocolate, you know."
"Calling that stuff 'chocolate,'" I say, swallowing a mouthful of saliva in afterthought, "is like calling caviar 'fish eggs.'"
"When did you ever eat caviar?" asks Whit.
"There are a lot of things you don't know about me, Brother."
"I know you sometimes pretend like you've done things you've only read about in books."
"It's not totally pretending. When you read a book that's good enough, you sort of have done the things you read about."
"Don't talk about books," warns Byron. "You don't even want to know what they do to you here for that. If ERSA hears you -"
"Who's Ursa?"
"The Educational Remediation Services Administrator-the entity that runs, or really is, this place. That's the voice you were hearing over the intercom. And nobody's ever seen her in person, so some of us think she's just a computer. An extremely powerful one."
"I knew The One was into technology, but actually having a computer run a school-that would be a whole new kind of insane."
I glance over at Whit, who's staring at one of the little spots on the wall. There's one every few feet, and up in the ceiling, too. And each is covered with glass.
"Camera lenses, or ERSA's eyes, if you prefer," says Byron. "You'll get used to it. Although, word to the wise, it's always best not to forget you're being watched. Almost always."
"Almost?"
Byron shoots me a look. "Actually, always, always. I wouldn't want to face the wrath of ERSA myself."
I burst into a squeal of laughter. "Oh, it's my worst nightmare-a computer gone ballistic! Can't wait till Mrs. ERSA whips my butt when I tell her she can go reboot herself." I'm guffawing at my own incredibly stupid joke.
"Don't laugh. You'd be surprised what she can do. Like, she can change the chemical composition of the air in this room if you're not compliant-even make it toxic. And she doesn't care who else is in the room with you."
"Seriously, Wisty," says Whit, hushing me. "Try to keep the attitude in check. We need to not make waves if we want to figure out what's going on in this place."