Ivan clutched at Todd’s shirt and shook him, but his eyes stared further down the hallway.
“It’s here Todd.” he said. “And you’re too late. There’s no saving you.” Ivan laughed, but it wasn’t his normal, short and derisive snort, it sounded far more maniacal.
“What are you talking about?” Todd asked. He tried to remove Ivan’s hands, but the boy’s grip was far too strong. “Are you on steroids or something?” Todd gasped. “Have you been exercising?”
“Poor Stewart, always a day late, a dollar short and two pennies above crazy.” Ivan said.
“What does that even mean?”
“I’m taking your spot in Scofield’s class and you haven’t even touched your assignment yet. You’ll never catch up.”
“That’s what this is about? There’s two weeks until the first progress report.” Todd said. Ivan’s face lit up.
“Don’t tell me...no.” Ivan drew out the word as he released Todd and touched his heart in mock concern. “You really are slipping Stewart. I knew one good grade would go to your head.”
“I’ve been busy with...stuff.” he said, his eyes darted back and forth. Todd’s rapt attention to the book of magic tricks aside, he still wasn’t ready to share his new hobby.
“Well you stay busy Stewart. I haven’t slept in over eighteen hours and I have no plans to start soon. See you in class, if you’re not booted first.” Ivan paused. “For the record, I will request that you be booted even if another spot opens.”
“What about the tabletop club? You plan the entire campaign on the first full day of school every year, Sarah and I correct you, then you get irrationally angry. It’s more than hilarious, it’s tradition.” Todd said. Ivan furrowed his brow.
“Tabletop club...” he said. His voice was distant and his expression softened then snapped back to its’ previously crazed state. “Oh nice try. You’d like that wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah. I thought that was clear.” Todd replied.
“There will be time for that...eventually. I’m focused on what’s important.” Ivan said.
“You have a problem.” Todd said.
“Look around Stewart, the only one with a problem is the guy who has something everyone wants and is doing nothing to keep it.” Ivan shouted. He made a sweeping motion towards the rest of the hallway; it was packed and everyone moved with an unsettling urgency. Todd couldn’t recall ever seeing so many students at school this early. Rather than socializing or trying to savor the last few moments of freedom, everyone looked lost in thought; several muttered to themselves as they clutched their book bags. An anxious energy hung in the air.
Ivan shoved Todd as he left and as Todd stumbled backwards, he could have sworn a gold color flashed across Ivan’s eyes. They’d never had a fist fight, but Todd knew it was unusual for Ivan to be able to push so hard. With no sign of Jun, Todd attempted to go straight to class, but he was slowed by the throng of students. Their movement was slow and plodding, like a herd of public school cows. At a certain point, Todd had no choice but to follow the flow of the crowd until it thinned enough to escape into a nearby hallway.
“Mr. Todd Stewart, correct?” a voice asked. Todd looked up and saw Nedd Scofield approach him with a tablet directly in front of his face. Todd could see the edges of an appalled look on Nedd’s face until he lowered the screen and looked at Todd. “Oh, okay. Yeah, that’s less unfortunate.”
“Mr. Scofield?” Todd asked.
“I was running a report and noticed you haven’t started your assignment yet. I wanted to see what I need to do to make that happen.”
“Oh, thank. I didn’t expect you to be such a hands on teacher.” Todd said. Nedd laughed.
“Teacher. Please.” He returned to his tablet and started to tap. “Why would I choose to be the dinosaur when I’m the comet? I hate to see good talent go to waste. And I also don’t want you to waste it either.”
“Oh. Well, I was going to get a start this morning then-”
“Todd. Todd, Todd, Todd, Todd. As you waste time talking, your rivals have already started implementing the instruments of your downfall.”
“You were looking for me-”
“This morning? The student who intends to rip you, kicking and screaming, from your perch atop the academic tower start yesterday morning...night. So, last night. You’re going to have to work double time to catch up.” Nedd snapped his fingers. “Wait, I get it. Start behind and humiliate the others when you surpass them.” Nedd looked up at the ceiling with a longing expression. “That takes me back.” He pulled the tablet up again. With your schedule, you can safely ignore....ninety-percent of all your other classes before mine.”
“I mean two weeks should be plenty enough time.”
“The first relegation is tomorrow, Todd. Even the dumbest paste eater can luck into decent grades with two weeks. DEN is designed to squeeze good grades out you. No, if you want to see the best the mind can produce, twist the pressure dial so much it breaks.”
“Do you mean their brains...or the dial?”
“If you’re as smart as I hope, you know the answer.”
“Don’t you think that’s a bit extreme?”
“Think? I know. Allow me to let you in on a little secret: those who want to take it easy want to drag you down. They lack talent and vision, and you make them feel bad, so you must be stopped.”
“That’s a pretty grim outlook.”
“That’s because life is grim. Think about all the times your teachers or parents called your work unnecessary.” Nedd said. He started to pace back and forth. Todd’s head bobbed as he remembered the amount of times he was forced to work around his parents interruptions for family trips or boring meals.
“I kind of get that.”
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“Every time they try and stop you, or claim you’re violating ethical laws, it’s because we can see further than they could ever dream, and that scares them. Not because of what we can achieve, but our boundless capacity to achieve it. We share that, it’s just I learned it much faster and at a higher proficient. But the gap between you and me is slightly smaller than the gap between us and everyone else. It’s still significant though. That’s why I finished school early. Much earlier than you will.”
“You really think so?”
“I know so Todd. Your grades went from good for a monkey to great for a much higher primate in a summer. Told me everything I needed to know.”
“You looked at my grades?”
“Old habit. When I was in school, I knew the grades of the fifty closed ranked students. I could tell what they’d get on a test before they did. And that was back on paper. A lot harder to break into the records room than guess the password for the default account. The password was ‘password’, by the way.” Nedd said. “You want me to believe those people belong in our stratosphere?”
“That’s kind of invasive.”
“Only if you’re caught and only if you’re small minded. If you let the peons dictate what you can do, they dictate what you can be.” Nedd said. Todd frowned. Ever since the first grade, he’d worked hard to achieve the best grades possible. But that was always for his own benefit, and only a small part out of competition. Todd never looked down on students who didn’t score as high as he did. Technically he did, but not to the same way that Nedd spoke. Still, when Todd thought about the teasing, bullying, and remarks from classmates with lesser grades...well it just wasn’t right. Why should he be picked on because he reminded the teacher of a promised quiz? He needed the points and they should have studied. It wasn’t his fault.
Nedd pulled his phone out. “Wow that was good.” he said. “DEN, keep recording and add the last twenty seconds to the ‘deep quotes for black and white photos folder’ marked for review.”
“Wait are you recording our conversation?” Todd asked.
“That’s the wrong question Mr. Stewart. The real questions is: can you continue to risk being one of the two spots taken by a second rate student?”
“There should be two spots open.” Todd said. “I downloaded the class roster as proo...I mean for a personal reason, and saw Viktor Laine’s name, but obviously that’s an error. He and the girl you kicked out makes two spots.” Nedd narrowed his eyes.
“You let me worry about attendance and so called missing students. I mean it’s not like you’ve seen him running around the school or neighborhood possibly behaving in peculiar manner have you?”
“No...” Todd said. Nedd forced a laugh which came out more like wheeze.
“Exactly! I saw him earlier. Which means your focus needs to be on keeping your top spot. It is imperative you do your assignment.” His face changed as he studied Todd. “Check your email and tell me this assignment isn’t the an exciting challenge. It’s been tailored to you by DEN.”
Todd pulled his phone out and went to open the Fillmore app, but it was gone. He scrolled a few times until he noticed an app he’d never seen before: DEN. “That’s called Predacious Application Installation. Allegedly, a program capable of scraping data, overwriting permissions, and replacing other applications on a device is quote, unquote dangerous. So you kids can have at it until I get it back on the market.” Nedd said.
With one click, Todd was loaded into the program. The presentation and layout was, admittedly, very slick. The main page displayed a list of assignments and their due dates for his other classes, ranked by grade weight in the class, and suggested order of study. This was better than a syllabus, Todd would have access to assignment previews and their grade impact before he walked into the classroom. A calendar on the side the screen highlighted test days and possible quiz dates based on teacher history. At the top of the screen, below his terrible ID photo, was a real time projection of his grades based on current work and logged hours of studying. Todd felt sweat form on his forehead and his stomach dropped when he saw the big, red zero.
“Because my class is well...superior to the rest of the curriculum, it has its own special part of the app. Tap the wolf icon.” Nedd said. Todd’s thumb instinctively found and tapped the image.
“Todd Stewart.” Todd blinked and the room came into focus. It felt as if he had come up from being submerged for a long time. The immediate sense of clarity was a strong contrast to the fog Todd didn’t realize he had been under. Todd was sitting in the cafeteria and the sun, high outside, indicated, it was afternoon. He looked down and in the place of food was a notebook. Todd didn’t even recognize anything written down. Instead of painstaking organization, the book was filled with scribbles and scratches; notes were written along the margin and sentences were squeezed in between one another.
Todd looked up from the notebook. Jun sat across from him and finished some food from out of a plastic container. Everyone else in the cafeteria appeared to be just like Todd with no food, only papers and tablets out.
“I’m having second thoughts about allowing you to help me. You need to be in school. You’ve been loopy all day. I just need to know if your after school magic club would get in the way.” Jun said.
“I...what...how are we here?” Todd asked. He closed his eyes and rubbed his face. “Yeah...Great Frissini...magic.” He turned and saw a duffel bag on the table next to Jun. “What is that?”
“Finally! I’ve been trying to show you this since lunch started.” Jun looked around and unzipped the duffel bag, then slid it across the table. Todd, still a bit woozy, grabbed the bag with lazy hand and flipped up the top. He nearly jumped out of his seat. “Easy.” Jun hissed. It was the fastest Todd had ever zipped anything up. He almost threw the bag at Jun as he handed it back.
“What are you doing with that?” he asked.
“Since everything after school got canceled, including detention, we needed a back up plan.”
“This place would riot if you got caught with that.”
“I won’t. You’re carrying it. It’s for you to use.”
“I most certainly will not.”
“Then don’t, but I’m telling you, you’re gonna wish you had.” Jun said. He stood up, motioned for Todd to follow, and left the cafeteria. Todd sighed and grabbed the bag with the tips of his thumb and forefinger. As he walked away, Todd felt a tightness in his chest. He looked at the other students and wanted nothing more than to sit back down and join them. He started to take slow, hesitant steps towards the door, then stopped entirely. He had to do what he could to keep Jun out of trouble, but every moment could be the moment one of the people in the room or somewhere else in the building surpassed him. Todd almost felt physically ill the longer he debated leaving. In the end, the fear that Jun getting caught would lead back to Todd as an unwitting accomplice won out.
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“Just how long, exactly, is this supposed to take?” Todd whispered over his shoulder. In two days, Todd was party to breaking into more school rooms than the rest of his academic career combined. This time, they, really Jun, broke into the guidance office. They only needed the lobby in order to make use of the receptionist’s computer, but Todd knew the distinction would mean nothing when they were being hauled off to reform school.
“Are you sure you don’t want take a look around? The district’s database is wide open.”
“No.” Todd hissed. “I’m not some...hacker like you.”
“That’s okay. I’ll do it for you.” Jun said. “I can probably give you admin privileges. Let me put your ID in-”
“What? Stop!” Todd shouted, despite himself. He ran into the room just as Jun finished his last keystroke.
“Whoops. They log access and I can’t hide that. Hmm. Probably shouldn’t log into your account from your home computer.”
“You’re trying to get me expelled aren’t you?”
“Of course not. That comes later. Question: Todd Stewart, how did you get an E in gym? I assume E is an F but even worse.”
“What? I’ve never gotten an E in my life. It’s a failing incomplete. Once of the cool things about Viltburg is they punished you worse for not doing work than for doing poorly on your work. They also punished doing poorly on your assignments. I miss that place.”
“You must not have turned in anything.”
“What?” Todd marched to the computer and moved Jun out of the way. On screen was his transcript, such that it was, from Viltburg. “How did you get this?”
“I told you, district’s servers. I know what you’re thinking, but you can’t give yourself all As, transcripts are forged at district HQ.”
“I don’t want to, nor need to...they gave me an E?” Todd stepped back from the monitor. “They knew I was on extended...leave of a personal nature. I did not fail any of my classes.” Jun put a hand on his shoulder.
“Sure thing, man. Sure thing.”
“I’m serious. Look at my grades before I left.” Todd clicked around in an attempt to show an earlier grading period, but while the date changed, the data stayed roughly the same. “That’s weird.”
“Is it Todd? You don’t have to convince me, cheating is a lot work too.”
“No. I the dates change but the grades are virtually the same.”
“Smart kids are pretty consistent.”
“Not like this.” Todd pointed at the screen. “Viktor scored second on the placement exam last year. He took my place after I left. He shouldn’t be there in September.”
“I’m sent something to the printer next door. Make sure nobody sees it when you pick it up.” Jun said.
“Whoever put this into the system might be the reason for the obviously incorrect E grades.” Todd said. He blindly clicked around until Jun shoved him aside.
“I can’t watch this any further. You look like someone’s grandpa using the computer for the first time.” Jun said. In a few keystrokes, had opened the modification log. “Whoever did it used a default account.”
“Oh.” Todd said. Todd moved to close the page, but took one last look at the screen. “Look at the classes Viktor got to take because I spent two days optimizing my second semester schedule for the perfect flow. Advanced Pre Calculus, into History of Trade and Travel in the lower Mediterranean, with a rousing double block of...” Todd trailed off and his jaw dropped. In place of English Literature was ‘course listing unavailable’ and in the entry space for the teacher’s name was Nedd Scofield.