THE NEXT TWENTY minutes feel like twenty hours.
Sometimes I wish was born in the age of smart boards and tablets.
I bet they made classes go faster. But that was before the Confiscation, ten years back. Now teachers are stuck with notes and lectures, like in the Dark Ages. I’m old enough to remember cell phones. I had one until I was eight. Then one day they just shut down the com grid and that was that. We were all supposed to turn in our devices and most people did. I still keep mine hidden at home, like a fossil.
I feel my foot tapping against the bolted steel base of my desk and I try to control it. No use. The clock says 9:22. Almost time to bust out of here. I’ve got a meeting in midtown that I cannot miss. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and I’m really pumped about it. I don’t have all the facts yet, but it’s a meeting that could completely change my life. And my life definitely needs changing.
The only challenge is getting out. Leaving class without an armed escort, even to go to the bathroom, is not in the picture. This is the routine: When you feel the need, you raise your hand and say “Permission for lavatory?” The teacher presses the blue button on her pendant and a guard shows up to walk you there and back. It can be really embarrassing on days when you have stomach issues, or your period. But I’ve got things scoped out, and I think I can make it work.
9:25. Time to move. I shoot my hand up like I’m launching a rocket. Baynes looks up from her notes. “Gomes?”
“Permission for lavatory?” I ask. I wince a little to look desperate. Otherwise she might make me hold out to the end of the lesson. She can be a real hard-ass that way. But waiting for the class switch is not an option. I need the halls to be empty. Or nearly empty. That’s the only way this is going to happen. Baynes presses the button and goes back to her lecture. I fidget in my seat. But not for long.
About ten seconds later, the door unlatches and the guard steps in, rifle across her chest. She’s in tac gear, head to toe. Her eyes are hidden behind a one-way lens panel. Bulletproof, no doubt. It’s a bit extreme for keeping a bunch of schoolkids in line, but I guess they’re not taking any chances.
She doesn’t speak. They never do. Not to us, anyway. I get up from my seat and walk to the front of the room. She holds the door open as I pass through. She follows me down the hall toward the bathroom. More guards are pacing the corridor in teams of two or four. Like I said, they’re everywhere.
I push open the bathroom door and head for stall number three. This part is not a total scam, because I actually do have to pee, and toilet three is the only one that actually flushes. When I’m done, I wash my hands and splash some water onto my face.
“Piece of cake,” I mumble to my reflection in the mirror.
When I open the bathroom door, my personal armed escort is waiting outside. But instead of following her back toward the classroom, I walk the other way—toward a door that leads to a locked corridor. I see the guard tense up. She knows this is a restricted zone, and she knows I know it too.
“Open the door,” I say softly.
The guard starts to move toward me. I see her finger twitching over the rifle safety. I look her straight in the helmet and say it again, a little louder.
“I said, open the door.”
This time, she reaches for the keycard chained to her belt and swipes it over the lockpad. I yank the door open and look down the empty corridor.
“Stay right here,” I say. And she does.
Don’t ask me why it works. To tell you the truth, I’m still kind of surprised that I can control people this way, one on one. It’s been part of me since I was a little kid. Maybe someday I’ll figure it out. But I can’t really think about it now. After the door closes behind me, I take a couple of short steps to make sure the guard isn’t raising her rifle. She doesn’t move. All good.
At the end of the corridor is a metal ladder leading to a hatch in the ceiling. I noticed it through the window on the door my very first day. And since it’s in a hallway with no classrooms, it only gets patrolled once every five minutes. I counted.
The bottom of the ladder is about seven feet off the floor, which means I can just reach it when I stand on tiptoes. I stretch up and grab the bottom rung, then kick-swing my feet up to a small ledge in the tile wall. My arms aren’t strong enough to do a legit pull-up, but my legs are pretty fit, and once I get some traction on the ledge, I muscle myself up to the second rung. The metal of the ladder makes a hollow banging sound, and it echoes against the walls. Shit!
The next sound I hear is footsteps in the outer corridor. Not running. But definitely coming this way. Move your butt, Gomes! I swing one knee up to the bottom rung. From there, it’s a one-two-three climb to the hatch.
By the time the guards pass through, the hall is empty and I’m on the roof. Just one rusty fire escape from freedom.