Variant

She was a computer program. I’d been falling in love with a computer program. When she smiled it was because some algorithm had commanded her to. When she kissed me it was because a complex chain of ones and zeros made her do it. She wasn’t real, and she never had been.

But this was impossible. Computers couldn’t think, and they couldn’t act the way Jane acted. Machines couldn’t look like Jane looked. Her skin felt real. There was life in her eyes.

I closed my eyes as a sharp wave of pain wracked my chest. I needed a doctor, but the infirmary was run by Dylan. And even if he hadn’t been the one who’d beaten me, what could he do? He was a teenager, just like me.

Or was he?

Jane had a model number. And her number was 117C. Were there 116 others? There weren’t even that many students in the school. But with the way people came and went, maybe there had been 116. Maybe the others died, like Jane.

Jane was dead.

No—she was never alive.

Was everyone a robot but me? Maybe they were watching me, testing me. How will Benson Fisher respond if he’s in a fight? Will he try to escape? Will he make friends? Will he fall in love?

Breathing hurt. Lying on the ground hurt, but I couldn’t do anything else.

Jane could have been the only one. She’d been in the school longer than anyone else. Maybe her stories about the fifteen others who had disappeared weren’t true. She was the first, and she was here to watch everyone else.

I suddenly realized that everything else must have been a lie, too. She wasn’t from Baltimore. She hadn’t been homeless. She didn’t want to be a doctor. Her freckles were paint, her hair was dyed.

I yelled, a visceral angry cry. Jane had tried to make me think that I could survive in this place, that I shouldn’t kill myself in a crazy escape. That there were good things in this life. But it was all fake.

Maybe that was why she’d become my friend in the first place. I was getting ready to run, and her programmers wanted me to stay. They knew I needed a reason to keep me here, so they activated some “flirt” command in Jane’s circuitry.

But it couldn’t just be her. There had to be others in there—in that building right now. Why else would people follow all these stupid rules? Isaiah had to be one, running the Society and giving orders to keep everyone in line. But were there others? What about Carrie and Curtis? Maybe one of them was in the same situation as I was—trying to escape and in need of a reason to stay.

What about Mason? Someone to keep an eye on me, since I was the new guy.

Laura and Dylan for sure. They were too concerned about enforcing the rules, too strongly allied to the school. But then why would they attack Jane? It didn’t make sense. Why would a robot kill a robot?

Nausea swept over me.

Becky, I wasn’t sure about. At first I would have thought yes, definitely. She was fake. Too cheerful, too obedient. But there was sadness in her eyes, and loss. Fear.

No. Jane had emotions, too. Becky’s sadness wasn’t any more telling than Jane’s happiness or mischievousness or rebelliousness.

I rolled onto my back and looked at the school. Anyone could be like Jane. Everyone could be like Jane.

I had to escape. I had no option anymore to try to take someone with me, to try for a mass exodus and hope for strength in numbers. I couldn’t trust anyone anymore.

I struggled to get to my feet, fighting the pain but unable to fight the hopelessness. Jane had become my best friend, and now she was gone. But it was worse than death—she had never existed. I wasn’t a boyfriend mourning for a lost love; I was a dupe, mourning my own blindness.

I limped across the track, heading for the trees. My hip was burning with every step, and I couldn’t breathe. Still, I’d find some way to climb the wall. The paintball flagpole had at least twenty feet of rope—I could cut that and use it for something. Or I could knock down a tree. Or take some of the lumber from a bunker. There had to be a way.

I was light-headed, and I began swaying with every limp. I coughed, and the pain was so bad it nearly knocked me to my knees. And then I coughed again and couldn’t stay up. Blood dripped out of my mouth.

I have to keep going. I gritted my teeth and stood again. I was almost to the tree line. It would be harder walking in the woods, but I had to do it. I had to get out tonight.

The thought struck me that someone might already be coming. I’d seen what Jane was. There had to be repercussions. Whoever was keeping it a secret would know what I’d seen. They knew I could ruin it all for them.

I was moving so slowly, forcing every step.

The school was wrong, though. I couldn’t ruin everything, even though I’d seen Jane and the metal under her ear. I couldn’t tell anyone because there was no one to trust. And there was nothing I could give as proof.

And tomorrow Laura and Dylan would just finish the job, anyway.

The woods around me were spinning. It was so cold. I stumbled and then fell.

Chapter Seventeen

I do not want to find these guys making out in a bunker.”

My left eye opened slowly, like it was struggling under some heavy weight. I could only see dirt and rocks.

“Benson and Jane I can understand,” another voice said, “but Dylan and Laura? The Society won’t put up with that—they’ll be kicked out.”

“All four of them will get detention anyway. Whose dumb idea was it to open the doors? Did you see Benson and Jane leaving together all gooey eyed? I wanted to throw up.”

The voices faded away and I closed my eye again.

I could tell that I was breathing because it hurt to do it, but my brain was foggy and sluggish. My muscles weren’t responding.

I was cold.

Two four-wheelers were out in the forest, one far and one close. I could hear their engines.

Footsteps somewhere nearby. Someone was running.

“Hey, guys!” someone shouted. “I think they tried to escape.”

“What’d you see?” It was Curtis.

“Blood, and lots of it. Around the front of the school. The Society just found it.”

“I knew it. Benson ran.”

“But Jane?”

Curtis’s voice was hard and angry. “He talked her into it.”

There were more footsteps crunching in the loose rock, and the voices disappeared.

I opened my eye again and found the strength to move my head slightly. I was in the forest, but I wasn’t sure how far. There was a patch of dry grass a few inches in front of me, and bare dirt. A lone intact paintball lay among the pebbles.

My left hand was in view. It was swollen, caked in blood, and purple.

I could hear more voices now—not clearly enough to understand what they were saying, but I knew that there were lots of people outside. Probably all the students.

Dylan, Laura, Jane, and I were missing. They were searching for us, just like when Lily disappeared. But the Society must have been able to unlock the doors to check outside this time.

What would the announcement say about Jane? Hit by a car?

Grunting, I moved my right arm underneath me and began to lift myself off the ground. It felt almost impossible, like I had an extra hundred pounds of weight strapped to my body.

I coughed and nearly fainted.

I could see the students now. They were spread out across the campus, some in groups and some alone. Most were over at the school, and more were heading around to the front, to where the blood had been found. Jane’s blood.