Variant

I spoke. “Okay.”

“You’ll wear it then?” Becky said, her voice lightened but her back still to me.

“I guess I have no choice.”

She turned. Her face beamed, and she held up the boxes. “Which do you want?”

“The watch, I guess.”

“That’s what most boys choose,” she said, quickly returning to her perky old self, though still rattled. Guilt was weighing down on me, but I tried to push those thoughts away. Maybe what I’d done was wrong, but Becky shouldn’t be helping the kidnappers, either.

She opened the box and pulled out the plain gray wristwatch, and then took it to her desk. She popped a panel off the back. “You’ll be pleased to know that it’s waterproof, so you can wear it in the shower.”

Yeah. That really makes up for everything. I reluctantly sat back down.

She inserted a small chip that had been lying on the edge of her desk. “So, this will let you in to all the places you need to go—your dorm, your classroom, any place you have the contract for.”

“Contract—what’s that?”

“Oh yeah. That’s not exactly a rule, but here’s the ten-second version of how the contracts work: There are a lot of jobs that need to be done around here. There are no adults, which means there are no janitors or gardeners or even teachers. So, every couple of weeks, jobs are posted and we bid to see who does what.”

Becky brought the watch to me and put it on my wrist. It snapped snuggly—impossible to slide off.

“We bid with what? Money?”

“Points,” she said, sitting down beside me, one leg folded beneath her so she could face me. “We bid how many points we’re willing to do the job for, and then they give the contract to the lowest bidder. When you get paid, you can use the points to get clothes or food or whatever. I think that some of the guys in the dorms even bought some video games.”

“Does everyone have to have a job?” I had no intention of helping this school.

“Kind of.” She smiled, a little more obviously fake than before. She touched my hand again, too, which seemed almost rehearsed. “Things are different than they used to be. Better—way better. For a while, it was every man for himself. But everyone got angry, and no one was satisfied because the good jobs would get down to one point, and you can’t come close to buying anything with one point. So, people started getting together and bidding as a group. For example, all of my friends and I bid on the administration jobs. That worked a little better, because I wasn’t competing with my friends, but we were still competing with everyone else.”

“People want the jobs that bad?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said with a laugh. “You can get some fun things. And, as you keep pointing out, we’re kinda stuck here, so every little bit of fun helps. Anyway, my group got bigger and then we started making deals with other groups—we won’t bid on janitorial jobs if you don’t bid on administration jobs. That kind of thing.”

“So, like a union.” My foster dad two families ago—Mr. Bedke—had been a union organizer, and he was always on the phone trying to get the members to agree on something or other.

“I guess,” Becky said. “I don’t know much about unions. But in the last year or so we’ve been pretty formalized. All the jobs are split up between three groups now. We don’t bid on each other’s stuff, and that means that we all earn a lot of points.”

“I’ll probably have to join one of those three groups, right?”

“Yep,” she said. “Unfortunately, there’s a new rule”—she pointed at the security camera—“and I’m not allowed to tell you which group I’m in. But, like I said, my group has the administration contracts. You can ask around. It’d be great if you joined up.” She was smiling warmly, and I almost thought she was flirting with me—flirting with me to get me to join her weird union. And after what I’d just done to her. How did I end up here?

I leaned back in the sofa, my legs sore from traveling all day. I tried to think of something I could say or do that would get me out of this school, or at least make things a little more normal, but nothing came to mind.

“Any more rules?” I finally asked.

She shrugged. “Don’t be tardy. Wear your uniform during class and meals. No drugs or alcohol, not that you could get them in here. Don’t destroy property. You know—common sense stuff. There’s a full list in your manual.”

Becky stood up. She seemed a little disappointed, but I didn’t know why. Was I supposed to try to talk her into spilling the name of her stupid job club?

“Do you want to see your dorm?” she asked.

I sighed. “No, but I guess I don’t have a choice.”

Becky didn’t answer, but her eyes said it all. I was stuck here.

We left her small office, and she made sure the door closed behind her.

“If you need anything,” she said, “you can always talk to me.” She pointed at a small call button next to her door. “If I’m not here, this will page me. It’s part of my contract.”

I nodded, but I didn’t have any intention of coming back down here. I was going to find normal people. Something told me that any help Becky had to offer was help I didn’t want.

We headed upstairs, passing carved wood, huge old paintings, and delicate moldings.

I suddenly realized there were no students in the halls.

“Where is everyone?” I asked.

“They’re in the dorms,” she said. “It’s against the rules to go down and wait for new students to arrive. Curtis and Carrie will get punished for that.”

“So they’re all locked in their dorms, locked in the building, locked in the wall, locked in the fence.”

Becky laughed. “Benson, I get the feeling you’re not happy. But, yes, they’re all in the dorms. Well, most of them. The group that has the cafeteria jobs will be down there making dinner. You can thank your lucky stars for that.”

“Why?”

“When you get into the dorms, everyone is going to ask you to join their group. You don’t want to join that one.”

I smiled. “I assume that’s not yours, then?”

“Ugh, no.”

We turned a corner and went up another set of stairs to the fourth floor.

“Here we are,” Becky said, stopping at a large wooden door. I heard a buzz. She pointed up at the ceiling, and I saw a round black device. “It sensed your chip. This door will open for all the boys, but not the girls. The buzz means it’s unlocked. You’ll be in room four twenty-one.”

I reached to try the knob, but her hand stopped mine.

“Benson,” she said, her voice low. She looked up into my eyes. “I’m serious. Follow the rules.”

Becky paused like she wanted to say more, but then turned on her heel and hurried back the way we’d come.

I opened the door and went inside.

Chapter Four

The hallway was packed with guys—maybe about twenty or so. Most were sitting on the floor, presumably waiting for me, and they popped to their feet as I entered the dorm.

They were all smiles and handshakes, greeting me warmly and reminding me more than a little bit of Becky. In the front of the group was a tall guy, with short, curly hair that had been on the receiving end of a huge amount of gel. He wore glasses with thin black frames and looked to be the tallest of the group. Becky had said no one was old enough to graduate, but he had to be.