Question Four #3
Mando glances at Scar, seeming confused, and says, “You don’t need that stuff. You’ve got this natural glow thing going on.” Scarlett responds to this by snorting watermelon soda out of her nose.
A ping! sounds from all our tablets at once. The screens light up with notifications.
“Our test results,” Scarlett says. She looks pale as she mops up her soda with a napkin. “It’s got to be.”
Mando stares down at his tablet without picking it up. “You think they’ll start cutting some of us now?”
It seems obvious. Of course they’ll use the tests to determine whether some of us don’t deserve to be here. A wide, hollow space opens up inside me. Oh God. This could already be the end.
I pick up my tablet, palms sweating. I feel suddenly sick.
I want to postpone the moment when I read whatever my results have to say; I want just a few more minutes to eat Luminary’s excellent food and talk and dream about Blackwood before it all comes crashing down around me.
But everyone else is already looking at their own tablets, so I hold my breath and force my eyes to the screen—
A picture of a fox stares back at me. And below the fox are the words:
You have been assigned to the Innovator dorm.
I exhale, relief flooding through me. The fox is sketched, the faintest black lines on a white screen, like a wood etching. I don’t really understand what he has to do with anything, but I decide I like the look of him. I trace his tiny, sly-looking face with my thumb. He seems rebellious.
The notification disappears an instant later, replaced with a map of the grounds. I watch as a tiny dotted line travels over the map, showing me that the Innovator dorm is all the way across the campus, in a wooded area near the border of the school.
“I’m in Innovator,” Zo announces, looking up from her tablet.
“Me too,” I say.
“Same,” Seven adds.
Scarlett is quiet. She stares at her tablet for a beat longer than the rest of us, and when she looks up, her expression is miserable. “I’m in Connector.”
She shows me her screen. Instead of a fox, she has a little dolphin.
“Hey, me too!” Mando chirps. He holds his knuckles out for Scarlett to fist-bump, but she can’t bring herself to look at him. I wonder if she’s still reliving the watermelon soda incident.
“I told you they’d never let us room together,” I tell her.
“I know,” she says, shoulders slumping. “I just hoped we’d be in the same building.”
“There’s a bunch of information about the different dorms on the school portal.” Zo’s bent over her tablet, swiping through the screens. “I was looking through it during the assembly.”
“How?” I want to know. “I thought the tablets were locked.”
“Locked,” Zo says with a snort. She pulls a small black device out of her pocket. It’s about the size and shape of a USB drive. “This is called a Penguin. I can use it to get through just about any form of cybersecurity in seconds.”
“You’re a hacker?” I ask.
Zo shrugs and pockets her device. “You could say that. I don’t really like being told there are places I’m not allowed to be.”
“I get it,” I tell her.
“Makes sense. Innovators are supposed to be clever, resourceful, and good at outsmarting obstacles,” Zo continues, her eyes flicking up. “Reading between the lines, I’d say you guys aren’t too good with following the rules, either?”
Neither Seven nor I say anything, which is the same as agreeing.
Zo’s lip twitches. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Let’s see…Connectors are empathetic, cooperative, and social, so I bet everyone in your dorm is going to be really nice, Scarlett.
Strategists are all about wisdom and analytical thinking, so those must be the brainiacs.
Visionaries are ambitious and determined… ”
“Future business majors?” I guess.
Seven snickers and adds, “Future politicians.”
“And Protectors are strong and resilient,” Zo finishes.
“Mmm, they sound hot,” Seven says. “I bet they’re the zaddies of the school.”
“Girls can be strong and resilient,” I point out.
“I reject your implication that a girl can’t be a zaddy.”
I’m still laughing when I finally find the list of students assigned to each dorm. “Hey, that’s weird. There are only eight students in Connector.”
Zo leans forward to see what I’m pointing at. “Really?”
“Every other dorm has exactly ten students. But Connector only has eight.” I double-check the list to make sure I’m counting right. “But that would mean there are only forty-eight students. At the assembly, Lynn said there were fifty students in this class.”
Zo stares at the tablet. “I guess they really are sending kids home already.”
I swallow. “Looks like. What do you think they—”
The sound of something slamming to the floor suddenly cuts me off, and in an instant, every single student in the cafeteria goes silent. No one moves. No one even seems to be breathing. My heartbeat pounds in my ears.
It takes me a moment to spot the girl standing in the middle of the room: It’s the redhead who’d introduced herself as Chloe during testing.
She dropped her dinner tray. No big deal, right?
But it takes everyone a minute to relax and start talking again.
It’s like we’re all waiting for something freaky to happen.
“Clearly, we’re all on edge,” Scar mutters.
“C’mon, it doesn’t look like the Connector dorm is too far from Innovator,” Zo says. “You guys can walk over with us.”
She leans over to gather her backpack from underneath her chair. I watch as she unzips it and carefully slips her tablet inside, next to a paperback copy of The Count of Monte Cristo.
She must catch me watching her because she stiffens suddenly. “What?”
“The Count of Monte Cristo,” I say. “Good book.”
She looks surprised. “You’ve read it?”
“They had a copy in juvie, which was ironic. Why give kids in juvie a book that’s basically a manual on how to break out of an impenetrable prison?”