Laughter at the Academy Read online

  Mr. Groblek’s frown deepened, as did the concern in his eyes. “If this is financial, there are scholarships—”

  “I promise, it’s not about money.”

  He paused, tilting his head and looking at me with a sudden canny sharpness that wiped away his years, replacing him with the young, brilliant man he’d once been. He was still brilliant. Teachers like him were a greater threat to our place in these schools than any student could have hoped to be. Not all of them approved of the Lamb project, or what we did. Some of them said we were entrapment tools, meant to destroy futures during a time when they were meant to be built up.

  “You’ve been one of my favorite students since you started at this school,” he said. “I can’t remember the last time I had a sophomore in my honors class.”

  “That’s a lie,” I said. “You remember everything.”

  “You’re right, I do,” he said, and chuckled. I risked a small, timid smile, the sort a prize pupil might share with her beloved math teacher. He sobered, looking at me, and said, “I remember a lot of students like you. It’s never too early to start planning for your future. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I do,” I said. “I’m all about the future.” Just not my own. The warning bell rang, and I took a quick two-step backward, clutching my books against my chest. “I’ll be late.”

  “Go,” he said, waving me off. I waved back, and like a shot, I was out the door, moving against the tide of his next incoming class with practiced ease.

  The rest of the school day might as well have been factory made. Classes blurred in a stream of crowded hallways, anxious students, and teachers who needed to be paid better so they could give up their night jobs. Miss O’Leary, who always smelled faintly of bleach from trying to scrub away her evening shift as the bartender at Applebee’s, gave us all free study before putting her head down on her desk and falling into a light but unmistakable doze.

  I had my math book open, staring at a page of formulas I didn’t need to memorize, when a folded note appeared in the middle of the first six hundred digits of pi. I picked it up and glanced behind me, frowning. Tom met my eyes with a challenging stare. He didn’t smile. He just jerked his chin sharply upward, indicating that I should open the paper. I turned back to my math and unfolded his message, trying to make my hands shake believably. It was easier than I thought it would be. Wondering what was on the paper was strangely terrifying, like it could change the world. Then the paper came open and I frowned, trying to make sense of what he’d written.

  I wasn’t sure what I had expected, but it wasn’t a matter-of-fact list of names with “yes” and “no” written beside each one of them and instructions at the bottom telling me to circle the correct answer. Then I focused on the names themselves. If my throat could have gone dry—if I had possessed that most basic of biological responses—it would have.

  The ten names on the page represented the ten students who were lowest on the school’s social ladder, the freaks, outcasts, and geeks who had never quite figured out the rules to the strange game called “popularity.” Two of them were Lambs, both in years below mine, hiding in plain sight among the student body. None of them should have been on that piece of paper.

  Hand shaking again, I circled “no” for every single name before folding the note back into a tight square and twisting in my seat to hand it to the girl behind me, who looked at me like I was something she had just scraped off of her shoe. Then she took the paper, handing it back to the boy behind her, who would in turn hand it back to Tom. He might be disappointed by my answer, or it might have been a test, one more attempt to prove that I was a Lamb, that I was the traitor they were looking for.

  I didn’t know anymore. And not knowing was agony.

  The bell rang for the end of the period and hence, the end of the day. Half the class was out of their seats like a shot, jockeying for their places in the line that snaked out the door. I stayed where I was, my eyes fixed on my open math book. I wasn’t really seeing the text anymore, but I could have answered any question that anyone wanted to ask me about it: my neural snapshot was secure, and perfect. It had taken three generations of Lambs before we could be taught to make mistakes, adjusted to have a range of accuracy, rather than being perfect every time. Now, we could even specialize. Of the two Lambs Tom had however accidentally managed to identify, one was an English prodigy—she never missed a question in her AP English class, and had already “won” two “writing competitions” organized by Wallace Industries and run through several shell corporations, to lend legitimacy without actually entering an artificial human in a contest intended to showcase real teenagers. She always looked a little sad when I passed her in the hall. It could have been the pseudo-depression we were sometimes instructed to emulate when the aggressions of the student body became particularly bad, but I suspected its roots went deeper. She seemed genuinely sad.

  It was enough to make me wonder whether some Lambs might be developing desires beyond a constant spiral through the public school system, trading shell for shell as they traveled from grade to grade, making and losing friends, only to betray them all on the altar of graduation. We had been created to learn, evolve, and grow; we chose our own places on the veldt, some choosing to be nerds and outcasts, like me, while others chose to record their targets from the relative safety of the top of the social food chain. Some Lambs had even been known to choose their appearances, or to request that their genders be adjusted when they began a new cycle, selecting identities that fit their sense of self with more accuracy. I liked the face I wore and the place I occupied, but I didn’t speak for all Lambs. I only spoke for me.

  A hand landed on my shoulder. I looked up, and tensed as my eyes met Tom’s. He was looming over me in a way that wouldn’t have been possible before high school, when he grew into a football player’s height, and I remained dainty little Beven, who could have been a cheerleader if she’d ever cared about anything outside of a book. (That was part of the profile. Pretty girls were more likely to inspire outright rage when they hovered at the bottom of the pack, while girls who were considered unattractive inspired pity and disgust, but would eventually be allowed to fade into the background.)

  “You really think I was wrong about all those names?” he asked.

  I shot a glance toward the front of the room. Miss O’Leary’s head was still on her desk. There was going to be no help coming from that quarter.

  Tom followed the direction of my gaze, and sighed. “Beven, I’m not going to hurt you. Jeez, what kind of a guy do you think I am?”

  “The kind who stands there and doesn’t do anything while his friends slam me up against a locker,” I said, swiveling back around to face him. My words came out surprisingly cool. I had been aiming for anger, or even betrayal, and instead I sounded quietly resigned, like I had always known that we would wind up here, him towering over me, me sitting and waiting for the end to come. What’s more, I realized that I was hurt. He had betrayed me, and it hurt me. I had wanted to think better of him. I always had.

  Maybe self-determination was a bad trait in a robot designed to ferret out bullies. We got too involved.

  “Beven…” Tom ducked his head, looking ashamed. “You don’t know what it’s like, okay? You don’t have to be afraid some robot is going to get up on the stage at graduation and start repeating everything you ever said on a bad day in front of your parents and the college admissions officers and everybody. Our whole future is riding on that ceremony. It’s scary.”

  “What, you think geeks can’t be cruel?” I almost laughed, managing to swallow it at the last moment. Geeks were some of the worst. Shit rolled downhill, and there was always someone lower than them, someone they could bully and harass without consequences. The so-called “popular kids” might hit and harass and use their social standing to lend weight to their attacks, but the geeks had time and cunning on their side. They also had less to worry about than the people at the top of the food chain. When a footba
ll player bullied a band nerd who later took it out on someone from the drama club, the band nerd was likely to be forgiven. It wouldn’t interfere with college admission or the course of their future. Stopping bullying at the root was the goal, however far away and impossible it seemed.

  “Beven…”

  “I don’t know who the school Lambs are, and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you,” I said. Again, I sounded calm, even resigned: this was the way things had to be. “You had your chance to be my friend and you decided you wanted jocks and pretty girls more than you wanted me.”

  Now Tom’s expression turned mulish, his lower lip poking out in the sullen way it always had, ever since we were elementary school students sharing lunches and playing tag on the playground. “I could say the same thing to you, you know. You could have started brushing your hair and talking like a normal person. Now it’s too late. You can’t blame me for that.”

  “I guess not.” There were other things I could blame him for, if I needed to pass blame around. “But you’re the one who changed, Tom, and I’m the one who stayed the same. I think that gives me the moral high ground here.” As if there were any moral high ground to claim. There was just survival, and making it to the end of high school as intact as possible. Then he’d be off to his future, and I would be unmasked, unmade, and sent back to the beginning again.

  He laughed. It was a short, hard sound, and it hurt to hear it. “See, that’s the problem right there. ‘Moral high ground’ isn’t something people just toss into casual conversation.”

  “Maybe not people, but geeks do.” I stood, hugging my books to my chest, and glared at him. It was better than looking at him with pity. “We’re not friends anymore, and if you’ve done something so bad you think the Lambs are going to tattle on you, maybe you should tell your parents, instead of telling me.” He should tell his parents about the party he’d taken me to when he was still trying to be my friend. The one where he’d called me a bitch and a whore and a cock tease for not being willing to sleep with him; the one where he’d left me to walk home alone, after midnight, through streets dark with shadows and filled with silences. He should tell them, so that I wouldn’t have to.

  “Beven—”

  “Goodbye, Tom.” I turned and walked out of the room. I didn’t let myself look back at him. It wouldn’t have been fair, to either one of us.

  Graduation day was as bright and beautiful as anyone could have hoped. The sun was high, the sky was clear, and the school’s true Valedictorian—a girl named Kim—was shooting me quiet glares across the front row of the audience, daring me to return them. She still didn’t know. I thought that was a little cruel, truth be told: she had been told to prepare a speech, in case something prevented me from giving mine, but she couldn’t be informed until the last second. Nothing that might blow my cover could be allowed.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw our principal walk over to her and bend down, murmuring something in her ear. Kim’s eyes widened, anger forgotten as everything changed. The next look she shot in my direction was full of pity, confusion, and yes, fear. She was afraid of me now. Afraid of what she might have said in my hearing. Afraid of what the consequences might be.

  Several people watched as Kim was walked across the aisle and vanished through a gap in the curtains. Some of them turned to look at me, and their faces were a mixture of confusion and dawning understanding. There were always people who looked at me like that, unable to believe that what was happening could actually be happening. Members of the “she-can’t-be” club. She can’t be, I saw her eat. She can’t be, I heard her call Miranda Wolcott a bitch that one time. She can’t be, I know her, she’s my friend, she’s my classmate, she’s been in my classes since first grade, she’s not a robot, she’s a math geek who never takes a hint. She can’t be.

  I was.

  Kim’s Valedictorian speech was halting and disjointed, but she did admirably, I thought, given that she hadn’t expected to have the opportunity. All the speeches were as good as they could have been, under the circumstances. When they were finished, Principal Moore took the podium and said, “As you are all aware, our school has been fortunate enough to be assigned an autonomous anti-bullying robot, provided by the Wallace Foundation. This robot has been attending classes with our human students, observing them, and helping to reduce in-school harassment through its presence. Beven Turner, will you please join me on the stage?”

  I stood, shrugging out of my graduation robe and leaving it puddled on my chair. I set my mortarboard on top of it. Then I turned, shoulders square, head high, and walked across the aisle to the stairs. The eyes of my classmates and their parents were fixed on me. A low murmur was gathering in the room, horrified and bewildered and amazed. Every graduation I had ever attended had sounded like this one when their Lamb was revealed. She isn’t, she can’t be, I didn’t think, I never knew…

  I never knew.

  “Do you need a microphone?” asked Principal Moore.

  I closed my eyes for a moment. When I opened them, I answered politely, “No, thank you,” and my voice was as amplified as his was. The muttering increased, now accompanied by the sound of several students openly crying.

  You shouldn’t have done what you did, I thought spitefully, and was immediately sorry. I was here to help them, not to shame them. They did that well enough without my help.

  Principal Moore nodded, turned back to the podium, and announced the first name.

  One by one, the students walked on trembling legs to the stage, trying hard not to look at me—trying so hard, and failing, every single one of them. The first came and went, and I stayed silent. He had only ever said a few harsh words, had a few bad days; we weren’t programmed to care about the little things. We’d capture them, and if his parents wanted to hear them after the ceremony, I would play them back in private, but they were nothing near bad enough to earn him a public shaming. The next three came and went the same way.

  The fifth was Tom’s friend from the football team. Ryan. When his hand touched his diploma, my mouth opened, and his voice poured forth: “What do you think you’re looking at, you whore? Stupid slut. Why don’t you die? Why don’t you do us all a favor and choke to death on a dick? Fuck you.” It went on and on, a torrent of bile, accompanied by the sounds of the violence we recorded but couldn’t play back: fists striking flesh, bodies slamming into lockers. I saw his mother in the audience, wiping her eyes. Ryan glared at me, but it didn’t stop the words. They were his. I was just giving them back to him.

  Ryan left the stage. The ceremony continued. More students, more silence; a few who got their own words thrown back at them, most not as bad as Ryan, who had probably changed schools in part to get away from his former district’s assigned Lamb. We weren’t allowed to share files—not yet. By the next time I was on this stage, we might be.

  Then it was Tom on the stairs, Tom reaching for his diploma, Tom looking at me in abject terror and betrayal, because I had been his friend once, before he grew into a bully and I turned out to never have been a real girl at all. He knew what he had said to me, what he had said in my presence. What he had called me. He knew what I was going to say back to him.

  The words rose in my mouth. I swallowed them back down, and kept looking straight ahead, not speaking, as Tom fled to freedom, and a future that I would never know.

  Maybe it was unfair; maybe choosing the future of a friend over doing what was right made me no better than the students I was intended to control through my simple presence. But if they wanted me to be a perfect automaton, doing only what my programming commanded me to do, they shouldn’t have made me the way that they did.

  They shouldn’t have given me a heart.

  Each to Each

  When Christie Yant was announced as the guest editor for Lightspeed’s special Women Destroy Science Fiction edition, I didn’t really dare hope that I’d be invited to participate…but I was. She even gave me a prompt to work from: research has found that women
do better on submarines. Why is that? What makes the difference? I read the papers, combined their core conclusions with my love for mermaids, and I had a story.

  This story was chosen for inclusion in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015, and I am still over the moon about that. Contains frank discussion of misogyny and transphobia, and some gendered slurs.

  Condensation covers the walls, dimpling into tiny drops that follow an almost fractal pattern, like someone has been writing out the secrets of the universe in the most transitory medium they can find. The smell of damp steel assaults my nose as I walk, uncomfortable boots clomping with every step I force myself to take. The space is tight, confined, unyielding; it is like living inside a coral reef, trapped by the limits of our own necessary shells. We are constantly envious of those who escape its limitations, and we fear for them at the same time, wishing them safe return to the reef, where they can be kept away from all the darkness and predations of the open sea.

  The heartbeat of the ship follows me through the iron halls, comprised of the engine’s whir, the soft, distant buzz of the electrical systems, the even more distant churn of the rudders, the hiss and sigh of the filters that keep the flooded chambers clean and oxygenated. Latest scuttlebutt from the harbor holds that a generation of wholly flooded ships is coming, ultra-light fish tanks with shells of air and metal surrounding the water-filled crew chambers, the waterproofed electrical systems. Those ships will be lighter than ours could ever dream of being, freed from the need for filters and desalination pumps by leaving themselves open to the sea.

  None of the rumors mention the crews. What will be done to them, what they’ll have to do in service to their country. We don’t need to talk about it. Everyone already knows. Things that are choices today won’t be choices tomorrow; that’s the way it’s always been, when you sign away your voice for a new means of dancing.