Fallout (Lois Lane) (11 page)

*

After I got home, I didn’t really breathe until I outlasted dinner and got to head to my room for the night. I’d been waiting the whole time for my dad or mom to reveal dramatically that they’d received a call from the principal, nail me on cutting class, ground me, say there’d be no more job.

But it didn’t happen.

Maybe Butler had been distracted that afternoon, afraid his not-so-little Project Hydra secret was too close to the surface. He’d waved off the bullying like it was nothing, but I knew he was wrong about that.

People didn’t look too kindly on adults who turned a blind eye these days. For good reason. Butler might not believe it was a concern, but tell that to the parents of teens who went around miserable or even killed themselves because of it. There were far too many.

I softly called, “Night, Deathmetal,” and got a return good night from Lucy, before I locked my door and went over to the laptop. Part of me wanted to clip the holoset on instead and return to the game, purely to prove I wasn’t afraid to go back.

And also to
see
SmallvilleGuy again. Even if it didn’t count as truly seeing him.

But I had zero interest in going in solo, with the risk of running into the Warheads. And I wanted to preserve the newly recovered balance between SmallvilleGuy and me.

The sweetness of our talk that afternoon, and that picture he’d sent me. He couldn’t tell me who he was, but he was trying to show me more about his life. At least, that was what I wanted to believe. His inability to tell all might frustrate me, but I was positive he’d never lied to me. That meant something. So I signed into the secure chat.

SmallvilleGuy:
I found some things.

SkepticGirl1:
That was quick. Dirt, please.

SmallvilleGuy:
First, you have to promise you’ll tell me what you’re doing where these guys are concerned.

SkepticGirl1:
The Warheads? I thought we covered that. I can handle them.

In the real world. Mostly.

SmallvilleGuy:
I meant the lab, but I worry about both. What I’ve turned up so far are some old articles about ARL research into mind control and group consciousness, and some more recent ones on acquisitions in the past few years.

SkepticGirl1:
Relevant to my interests. Keep typing.

SmallvilleGuy:
They did some experiments back in the ‘60s and ‘70s that didn’t turn out so well. The test subjects were vets, retired soldiers who’d been in the same units together. One involved trying to remotely control actions in combat to prevent mistakes. But they also wanted to see if it was possible to make a unit think as one, pursuing an objective together. Idea being they would have less fear for their personal safety, and make smarter decisions with increased brainpower focused on the same goal, fear-free. But none of their research on behalf of the military back then panned out. And when word leaked and the ethics got questioned, the research was shut down. They switched to a pure tech focus, developed some life-saving medicine, some gadgets. Pulled in the big money.

SkepticGirl1:
Charitable souls, you’re saying, after they got busted. Interested in the good of mankind.

SmallvilleGuy:
If by that you mean possessed of a desire to create the means of wiping out any parts of it that their customers might want to as completely and efficiently as possible . . . maybe.

SmallvilleGuy:
Now the more recent stuff. With all this money, a year ago they bought the company that created the technology behind the first real-sim holo game, and if you guessed it was Worlds War Three, you’re right. The management of WorldsHQ, that company, is still separate, but obviously ARL has access to their tech. I’m still digging to see if I can find more about that, looking for any joint projects.

SkepticGirl1:
You think they bought it for a reason besides raking in more cash-money, I take it?

SmallvilleGuy:
I do. On the ARL side, there have always been whispers that the R&D department was up to other things. I found them mentioned on the boards here and there, links to articles that imply their CEO wants to woo customers with even deeper pockets. I bet they’d like the military back as a partner somehow, no doubt hoping they can break into the world of special ops projects again. I wouldn’t discount the idea of them working with less official partners either though.

SkepticGirl1:
Hmmm . . . The Warheads definitely are in sync, and obnoxiously fearless. They didn’t care about Butler being on their cases at all. Or me. Do you think it’s possible this is R&D combining old ideas with new tech to take some handpicked gamers for a spin?

SmallvilleGuy:
Yeah, but why would they be messing around with human kids? It doesn’t make sense. It’s not like they could send them out into the field or combat. Plus, the Worlds connection. There’s more to this.

I frowned.

SkepticGirl1:
What do you mean, ‘human kids’? What other kind is there?

A moment of waiting, of the display telling me that he was typing.

SmallvilleGuy:
I was typing too fast. I don’t know what I meant. Too much reading about aliens on the boards.

SkepticGirl1:
Klutz. ;-)

SkepticGirl1:
My story goes live at 7 a.m. tomorrow. Just about Anavi, and the way they bothered her, the way Butler said the school wouldn’t help.

SmallvilleGuy:
Good. I’ll let you know if I hear anything useful from my friend, but maybe the whole thing will go away. I’d rather not see you get shot again.

SkepticGirl1:
I’m Kevlar, you’re glue . . . Or are you something else?

Earlier I’d resolved to leave the “who are you?” question out for once. This wasn’t exactly asking that. So it didn’t count.

SmallvilleGuy:
Night, Kevlar.

Of course it didn’t count. He didn’t answer.

CHAPTER 13

“From their earliest years,
children are taught that if they have a problem that is too big for them to solve themselves, if they are in trouble or in danger, they should tell a trusted adult. Parents might give examples—police officers, soldiers, ministers, coaches, teachers, and, of course, principals. And so, to go back to our story, when 16-year-old Anavi Singh, excellent student and one of only 98 people to ever win the Galaxy Spelling Bee, was being targeted by this vicious group of gamers, who could blame her for trusting that her principal would help her?

“This reporter observed firsthand Principal Robert Butler treating Singh’s plea for help and confidential complaint not with the care it deserved, or by meeting his responsibility as a trusted adult to help her, but with disdain. He brushed it off. He brushed her off, left her to fend for herself. As he himself stated, ‘We don’t baby our students here. Real bullying is much rarer than these news reports make it out to be.’

“They tell us a trusted adult will be on our side, but what about when those adults can’t be trusted? What then? Then, we must protect each other and tell the truth.”
– from “A Tale of Two Bullies” by Lois Lane (Devin Harris and Maddy Simpson also contributed)

*

I was rarely early for anything. It wasn’t my fault. Usually. Life threw too many distractions in my path, like videos of frolicking goats online or possible research lab conspiracies offline. But today, I arrived at school an entire ten minutes before the first bell. The red and blue halls were teeming, the hum and buzz of morning conversation a dull roar.

Could it be my imagination, or was there a brief silence as I passed people?

“She’s the one who wrote it,” a skaterish boy said to a girl rocking a fauxhawk.

The girl gave me a thumbs-up: “Way to stick it to Butler.”

I beamed at her with the force of an exploding sunspot. “Thanks!” I said, continuing on with more confidence.

There were a few more thumbs-ups, points and smiles—and the expected grumbling from people I could only assume were jerks or bullies themselves, adding a nasty comment here and there. But they couldn’t get me down, not when everyone else’s reaction was the equivalent of yay with pom-poms and confetti cannons.

Or close enough.

Maddy rushed up and took my arm.

“Oh. My. God,” she said. “Everyone read it. A couple of people even read some of my music reviews and shared them. Unbelievable.”

Devin materialized on my other side, holding up his palm, which I slapped. “We did it,” he said. “This is almost better than finding a dire wolf cache or getting a dragon to come over to House Devin’s side in
Worlds
.”

“Almost?” I said with mock offense.

He shrugged. “Dragons. Dire wolves. Versus school?”

James the Third was coming up the hallway toward us, and I felt Maddy and Devin tense. He wore an honest-to-god sweater vest. I hardly expected him to even bother to greet us unless he planned to express his disapproval again.

But he slowed, waiting until we reached him, and gifted me with a grudging nod. “Good work.”

I put my hand over my heart and gave Maddy a light elbow in the ribs. “You might need to catch me. I may faint here.”

The Third rolled his eyes, but he held up his phone so we could see the screen. The browser was open to the
Scoop
—not my story, but a sidebar that had been Devin’s idea. The teaser encouraged people to post their own bullying stories to demonstrate how common an occurrence it was.

I leaned in to get a better look at the glowing screen, and my mouth dropped open when I saw the number. “Is that a one-zero-zero? Already?”

James angled the screen toward himself, tapped it. “That’s a one-zero-one, because someone just posted a new one. They teased your story on the
Daily Planet
homepage, so you got Perry’s seal of approval too. Almost all of these are stories are not so different from Anavi’s, thanking her for being willing to come forward. And the
Scoop
for running it.”

I stepped back, overwhelmed. “Are they
all
from East Metropolis?”

“Not most,” James said, “but more than I figured. There are even a few others who agree that Butler lets it happen by not doing anything.”

“Anything about the Warheads?” I asked.

“Shhh,” Maddy hissed, but it was too late. Because said Warheads were nearly on top of our small cluster of justice and truth and gutsy reporting. And they would not be mistaken for fans anytime soon.

Gone were the mocking leers and grins, replaced by stone-faces that were somehow worse. They radiated dislike, disapproval, discontent.

No discord, though. They remained too similar for that.

“Creepy,” Maddy whispered.

“Looks like I made myself some enemies.” I sniffed, to show it didn’t bother me. “Not the first time.”

Even though it was unsettling.
They
were unsettling.

I tried to exile the memories of that shove against my mind in the cafeteria, of the hot explosion in my shoulder in the game.

The Warheads’ synchronized movements slowed, and then stopped, so they were standing in a strange, strained half-circle around us
Scoop
staffers. But I realized that wasn’t it. There was something about how they positioned themselves. It was . . . tactical.

They were arrayed around all of us, sure, but if I wasn’t mistaken, they were focused on Devin.

The hall had gone silent as an abandoned tomb, people quieting in anticipation of seeing some kind of showdown. I was never one to disappoint. Except maybe my parents.

“You guys didn’t really strike me as big readers,” I said, shifting over toward Devin. “I’m so honored. But, then, it was about you, and you
are
egomaniacal jerks, so maybe I’m giving you too much credit. What do you think?”

Devin coughed beside me, and when I looked over, he shook his head. Then he did it again, a quick shake, back and forth. Like something was bothering him. I’d seen Anavi do the same thing.

Forget standing tall in front of our audience
or
the Warheads. The actual scope of Project Hydra, whatever it was, remained a mystery. And so the important thing was to get Devin away from these losers. My story was supposed to stop the madness of targeting Anavi, and push them into giving up more clues about what was going on at the lab in the process—not get someone else put in their jerkhead sights.

Speaking of . . . where was Anavi, anyway?

Lucky for me, Principal Butler decided to put in an appearance. The bell rang and the hall began to clear, and he got a few raised eyebrows as students rushed past him.

He was rumpled, even though it was barely past eight. His suit was wrinkled and tie loosened. Like he’d taken a dozen complaining phone calls already and needed not to feel like he was wearing a noose.

“School board read it too?” I asked before I could stop myself.

Butler directed a furious look my way, but he must have been too angry to speak to me. He said, “My office now,” to the gamers.

He’d be coming for me sooner or later. Probably when there weren’t so many people watching. Even he wasn’t bold enough to collar me here and now.

Though he did finally say, “I’ll be checking your facts, Ms. Lane. You’d better hope they were confirmed,” before herding the gamer Hydra back up the hall toward his office.

Their many heads swiveled to give me . . . and then Devin . . . one last round of unsettlingly similar hard looks.

Devin was still being quiet in a way that I didn’t care for.

“Dev, you in there? I’m out here stealing your dire wolves,” I said.

For a second, there was no hint of a response from him, and even James and Maddy seemed vaguely alarmed.

But he shook his head once more, and then said, “In your elf dreams.” If his voice was flatter than normal, the others pretended not to notice.

I wasn’t always as good at pretending as I wanted to be, not in front of people who mattered to me, and so I towed him in the opposite direction of the principal and the Warheads.

The hall was mostly empty, and I waved away Maddy and James.

“Go on to class, you two,” I said. “I want to ask Devin something.”

They left, but not so happily—until James distracted Maddy by speaking to her.

Maddy’s playlist. I couldn’t forget to listen to it. I wanted to be able to tell her genuinely how much I liked it. I could at least stick to one part of my plan, even if the rest was kaput. The part where I made a friend here.

But right now, there were more pressing matters.

I stared at Devin, knowing that rumors would be flying if anyone saw us, me peering up into his face with my hands on his arms.

“Dev,” I said, “did they do anything to you?”

He looked down at my hands, and then back up, probably noticing the same thing I had about the two of us standing so close. He struck me as in control of his faculties again.

Especially when a half smile crossed his face, and he said, “Why haven’t I asked you if you have a boyfriend? Lois, are you single?”

“Um,” I said. “I think I am.”

He mulled that over, considering me. “That sounds like there’s a guy in the picture already.”

There
was
a guy in the picture already. But it was complicated, like this whole situation.

Even so, at the thought of SmallvilleGuy, I dropped my hands from Devin’s arms.

“Stop trying to distract me,” I said, partly to change the subject and partly because I was afraid the Warheads had gone after him back there. “Did those guys do anything to you, before?”

“What do you mean?” he said. He made a mini-shrug. “I’m the king. What could they do?”

I didn’t believe him.

But cluing Devin in on my suspicions that the Warheads were involved in some sort of unsavory top-secret research
and
that he might be in danger of becoming the next target of their group consciousness—well, that would take a little more time than we had before first period. And a lot more evidence.

Unlike Anavi, he wasn’t volunteering any details beyond the ordinary. It was possible the Warheads were messing with me. Possible they hadn’t done anything to Devin to make him so subdued. I wanted him to open up, though.

“Why’d you make your character a fantasy guy, not a mercenary or a soldier or an alien?” I asked.

He ducked his head in—unless I was misreading him—embarrassment. The first time I’d ever seen him less than confident.

“Spill it,” I said, twisting the screws.

“I like reading that stuff, okay?” he said. “Big novels with elves and orcs and dragons . . . If you tell anyone, I’ll—”

“Sic your dragon on me? Noted. Promise I won’t tell a soul. But really, these days, isn’t it okay to just let your fantasy freak flag fly?” I stroked my chin. “Oh, wait, you already did. And you put your head on it.”

He laughed, and the remaining tension was broken, any embarrassment gone. But I stayed with him all the way to his first period study hall, only going to my own geometry class afterward.

I’d feel much better when I saw Anavi, and confirmed that she was doing all right. This time, my skill at conspiracy theorizing might be getting the best of me.

Come on, SmallvilleGuy
,
dig up something else on this company that I can use.

*

The morning was a long one, filled with geometry (teachers would seemingly never learn that hard-selling that we’d need a subject later in life only made it sound more like we wouldn’t) and AP lit (I considered appropriating SmallvilleGuy’s take on
Macbeth
, for I too liked the witches best). I got a few more thumbs-up and high fives, which I wanted to enjoy, but I hadn’t been able to find Anavi. It was possible her parents had kept her home, but the day before she’d seemed so certain that she
wanted
me to mention her by name.

That had been before. Before her lunchtime revelations of the desire to slaughter and lay waste to all the worlds in
Worlds War Three
.

Before the mid-day break, I waited by Anavi’s locker. But if she was here, then she’d gone straight to lunch, so I headed that way.

I had wanted to enter the cafeteria together, in case the Warheads tried anything. I was still in Anavi’s corner.

The Warheads might have been taken to pretentious-office-ville by Principal Rumpled Shark, but they were free now, ensconced at their usual table by the doors. Whatever wrist slapping had occurred, you’d never know it to watch them.

They wore their holosets. I figured there was no danger in crossing close by them on my search for Anavi, given that they were deep in the game.

But they began laughing as I passed, without even turning off the glowing scenes in front of them. A chill passed over me, and I felt that shove against my mind, pushing me away. But more insistent. The pressure lingered.

Not so long, but long enough to make me want to get away from them. And fast.

I sped up, almost careening through the cafeteria. I garnered some “what’s with her?” looks as I half-ran, but I ignored them and went for the back corner and Anavi’s usual table.

She was sitting there, alone, and I was surprised that Maddy and Devin weren’t with her. I’d expected them to be.

But then the two of them rose from a table along my route, and Maddy grabbed my arm. “Don’t,” she said.

“Don’t what?” I asked.

“Go over there,” Devin said.

He still seemed less energetic than normal. But maybe I was imagining it, seeing something that wasn’t there through the lens of my worry.

“She ran us off,” Maddy said. “She was
rude
about it. I even gave her a word to spell, thinking she was joking at first.”

“Let me try,” I said. “You guys stay here.”

“Your funeral,” Maddy said.

“But I was so young and full of life,” I deadpanned.

I knew the whole deal and they didn’t.

Anavi might not be up to talking to people yet. So I moved toward her slowly, concerned about full troll-slaying mode. Why would Anavi be nasty with Maddy and Devin?