24 Students Remaining
A soft ding echoes from my tablet early the next morning, waking me. I groan and pull it off my bedside table, blinking at the screen.
The message reads: Please see the dean.
Dread curdles in my stomach, the events of the night before rushing back to me like a hangover: sneaking out of the dorm, my hot make-out session with Ian, breaking into the Records Room in Sullivan Hall. Getting caught. I certainly went on a bad behavior spree last night.
Ashlyn took me right back to my dorm after she caught me, and told me to watch my tablet, that I’d be informed of my punishment in the morning.
Am I about to get expelled? Is whatever happened to Keira and Diego and all those other students about to happen to me, too?
I collapse onto my pillow. I want to go back to sleep. I want to wake up to discover it was all a bad dream.
I somehow manage to get dressed and push myself downstairs and out the front door, and I’m wondering where, exactly, the dean’s office is located when I step onto the porch and find the trolley waiting for me.
The operator—Carl—is sitting in the driver’s seat.
My stomach churns a little more violently.
I climb inside, barely managing to breathe.
Carl glances at me and offers a sympathetic smile, like he knows exactly how much trouble I’m in and wants to make me feel better about it. Which only makes me feel worse.
My misery deepens as the trolley winds through the streets of Luminary before finally stopping in front of Sullivan Hall. Carl pulls a lever, opening the door. “Dean’s office is the first door on the left.”
“Thanks.” I stand and shuffle to the door.
I hear his voice call out a second before the door slams closed behind me. “Good luck.”
My footsteps echo on the marble floors as I make my way down the hall.
Have they called Tammy? I wonder. Is she already here, waiting in the dean’s office with her orange skin and bleached hair, torn between irritation that she has to deal with me again and delight that she gets to lecture me about what a delinquent I am?
It would explain why we never see the students once they’ve been expelled—because their parents are all waiting for them in the dean’s office, ready to whisk them back home so as not to distract the remaining Luminary students.
I stop walking in the middle of the hall, a taste like bile filling my mouth.
Is it possible that’s all that’s been going on this whole time?
Could the elevator drop have been another simulation, like the escape room explosion?
Did Keira and Diego really vanish? Or did they just fail their test and get sent home, exactly like Frank told us they did?
Did I gamble away my future for nothing?
When I reach the dean’s office, I don’t find Wyatt Sullivan or even Tammy waiting for me. It’s the woman with the short gray bob who spoke to us in the auditorium our very first day here. She’s sitting behind a wide, neatly organized desk, smart glasses perched on her nose.
I stare at her for a moment, trying to remember her name, when she looks up and sees me.
“Lia Michaels,” she says, standing. She gestures to herself, long, thin fingers pyramiding against her collarbone. “Lynn. It’s nice to officially make your acquaintance.”
Her voice has an authoritative clip to it. It reminds me of a virtual assistant, like she’s the real-life flesh-and-blood version of Siri or Alexa or whatever the Google Assistant’s name is. That same emotionless competence.
“Uh, hi, Lynn,” I say. “I was supposed to meet Dean Sullivan here?”
Lynn studies me through her glasses. Her eyes are a perfect, flat gray, just like her hair and her suit.
I wonder if the coordination was intentional.
She stares for a beat too long, and then clears her throat and says, “The dean is away on an urgent matter, unfortunately, but I’ve been informed of your situation, Miss Michaels. Please follow me.”
Lynn breezes past me, her high heels clipping the floor. I blink, confused. Are we going right back to the dorm to pack my things? Is there a security guard waiting somewhere with a cardboard box, like when someone’s fired on TV?
Neither of those things turns out to be true. Instead, Lynn leads me to a small, empty room. There’s a single desk in the room, a closed laptop sitting on top of it.
Lynn stops at the door and turns to me. “You’re going to type the code of conduct for me,” she instructs. “Please take a seat.”
I stare at the laptop, confused. Type the code of conduct.
Not Go back to your dorm and pack your things.
Not Let this security guard escort you off the campus like the malcontent that we all know you are.
Not Your foster mother is waiting, and she’s already mentioned military school in casual conversation.
This doesn’t feel like an expulsion. It feels like a punishment. A weirdly old-fashioned punishment, but still.
“Uh, how many times?” I want to know.
Lynn tilts her head, considering me. After a moment, she blinks and gives her head a little shake, as if to dislodge an unpleasant thought. “We’ll assess as we go. Please begin.”
I slide into the desk and open the laptop. Lynn stays standing at the door. Just as I’m starting to wonder whether she’s going to leave, she pulls out a tablet of her own and frowns at something on the screen. It’s probably her job to hang around and make sure I don’t cheat.
I turn back to the laptop. The screen is split in two.
On one half, there’s the code of conduct, already typed.
On the other, a blank document, cursor blinking.
Simple enough. Though it does seem weird that she wants me to type.
Is the idea behind this assignment to write until your fingers hurt?
One of those problematic “pain is good for you” kinds of things?
Sure, typing eventually makes your fingers cramp, but it’s not really the same thing.
I’m not complaining; it’s nice that I’m getting off easy. But still. Weird.
I hover my fingers above the keyboard. Take a deep breath—
I start to type.
L—
Something sharp pulses through my skin the moment the pad of my index finger brushes against a key, a burst of electricity, the same feeling as when you drag socked feet across the carpet, then touch a light switch, only about a hundred times more powerful.
I jerk my hand backward, swallowing a yelp. The keyboard remains on the desk in front of me, looking innocent. But it’s not innocent. That shock…
That shock was intentional.
I glance at Lynn to see her reaction. She doesn’t bother looking up from her tablet as she says, “Do we have a problem, Miss Michaels?”
“I—I don’t know.” I shift in my seat. I don’t want to touch another key. The tip of my index finger still feels raw.
“If you’re unable to fulfill the terms of your punishment, you’re welcome to choose expulsion instead,” Lynn says, eyes still on her tablet. “I can have the trolley return you to your dorm to pack.”
I swallow, and turn back to the laptop. Is this what happened to the others?
Were they sat down in front of a laptop like this one, forced to choose between an arcane, violent punishment and expulsion?
If so, it makes sense that none of them came back.
Who would voluntarily subject themselves to this?
I exhale deeply, through my mouth. Maybe I should take the out.
Stand up and allow Lynn to escort me from the grounds.
Wasn’t that why I broke into the Records Room?
Because I was weirded out by this place?
Because I wasn’t going to let my desire for a free ride to my dream college blind me to the fact that something messed up is going on?
But it’s the strangest thing: Now that I’m sitting here faced with the choice—stay and deal with the pain or give up and leave—I can’t bring myself to get out of this chair.
What’s waiting for me back home? Tammy and rumors about my father and crushing student loan debt—and that’s only if I can find a college with low enough standards to take me.
What kind of future can I look forward to if I choose that route?
In ten years, twenty years, will I think back on this moment and wish I’d decided differently?
This is my dream, my future. How much pain is too much?
The shock wasn’t so bad. I just have to wrap my head around it.
I lower my hands to the keyboard, fingers centimeters above the keys. I can do this.
I start to type.
My thought that the shock wasn’t so bad is quickly proven wrong.
It’s plenty bad. I don’t get used to the sensation.
Each time I touch a key, the pain hits fresh.
It’s unlike anything I’ve felt before, a low electric jolt, a feeling like cold water hitting a sensitive tooth.
It reaches through my skin and tissue to touch bone, plucking my nerves like guitar strings.
And it seems to compound, so that each tap is a little worse than the one before it, my fingers just that much more sensitive.
I don’t cry, but I can feel something wet gathering around my eyes, a purely physical response to the pain, something I can’t control. The inside of my mouth is dry and hot.
But I don’t leave. I don’t even think about leaving. It’s the weirdest thing. The worse the pain gets, the more determined I become to make it through, to push past the pain, to stay—
There will be no cell phones or electronic…
I lose track of how long I spend in that little room with Lynn, typing and retyping the code of conduct. I can’t type the words normally. It hurts too much. Instead, I hunt and peck at the keys, molars gritting together, a dull headache forming behind my eyes.
There…will…be…no…
I watch the sun move across the sky outside the room’s only window. I dig my teeth into my bottom lip and keep going. Ignoring the tears still flooding the corners of my eyes, and the fact that my knee has started jerking up and down, my body fighting against the pain crawling up my fingers.