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  So that’s what the ring is for, Ani thought.

  A visored twin to Mr. Clark followed the pair into the room, flamethrower held at ease. The guards unlocked the ring and backed out of the room without a word, taking the pole with them. The metal door slammed, and the external bar slammed home.

  With no sign of discomfort, Mr. Cummings stuck out his hand to Mr. Foster. “Rich Cummings, nice to meet you.”

  Mr. Foster giggled at the hand, stuck his half out, pulled it back and wiped it on his pants, then stuck it out again. He giggled again when they shook, and stumbled back as soon as Mr. Cummings released his grip.

  Mr. Cummings rolled his eyes, then took the upperclassmen to one side, leaving Kyle, Lydia, and Teah to Mr. Foster and Ms. Pulver.

  “If you put your desks in a circle—” He grunted, a wheezing flatulence that escaped between the exposed roots of his teeth, then kicked the cast-iron chair leg bolted to the floor. “Never mind.” He grabbed an easel-sized pad of paper and a box of crayons, then sat on the floor. They joined him, Mike clapping his hands at the novelty.

  “So who’s heard of the Laffer Curve...?”

  A half-hour later Ani’s head hurt, swimming with tax policies and fragments of Thomas Sowell quotes, but it was a good kind of hurt. She’d actually had to think, which made a pleasant contrast to the rest of the day.

  Mr. Cummings said his goodbyes, gave Sam a hug, and was steered out of the room on the end of the pole.

  “That’s a little weird,” Devon said.

  “What?” Joe asked.

  Devon looked at Sam. “A little comfortable, aren’t you?”

  “What do you mean?” Sam asked.

  Mike smiled from his seat on the floor. “I’m comfortable.”

  “The hugging, the extra attention. It’s a little weird.”

  Sam cleared her throat. “Mr. C taught my mom. I’ve known him forever.” She looked at Ani for support. “He’s like an uncle, you know?”

  Sarah Romero had always claimed to have been an only child. Ani had never known her dad, and not long before the Prompocalypse she’d learned that her mother’s identity was fake, but it never occurred to her until that moment to ask if her mom had had any siblings in her previous life.

  “Sure,” Ani said. “Like an uncle.”

  * * *

  As her mom finished dinner, Ani played around on the piano. She stole the melody from Thelonius Monk’s “Straight, No Chaser”; played it down an octave and larghissimo; and improvised a trilling melody with her right hand over the top. Her mom’s frequent annoyed glances told her all she needed to know about the overall effect.

  Ani held the final cord and smiled. “Hey, Mom, can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure,” Sarah shut the binder in front of her—a treatise on epidemiology she’d agreed to critique for a graduate student.

  Ani walked her fingers down the keys in Dorian mode as she summoned the courage to ask. “Did Jenny Picknett have any siblings?”

  Without missing a beat, her mom picked up her dishes and dumped them in the sink. “Who?”

  Ani wasn’t expecting a gushing soliloquy, but her mom knew she knew. So why the denial? “You know, Jennifer Picknett. The biologist?” You know. You.

  “What brought this on?”

  “Just curious,” Ani said. “I know, curiosity killed the cat—”

  “Curiosity killed lots of things, Ani.”

  “I know, but—”

  Sarah cut her off with a raised index finger. Ani stopped, stunned. She hadn’t pulled that since before prom. Ani opened her mouth, saw the warning in her mom’s eyes, and thought better of it. She turned to the piano and started back in on her composition.

  Her mom clanked around in the kitchenette for a minute, then Ani felt warm breath on the back of her neck. She almost couldn’t hear the whisper. “Any link between this lab and Jennifer Picknett would be devastating. The truth must never, ever go public. She’s dead now, and my name is Sarah Romero. The less you know about Jennifer Picknett, the better. Period.”

  Ani tried not to look at the camera on the wall as she finished the next iteration of the song.

  Her mom spoke up. “That’s strange, baby. What’s it called?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Chapter

  11

  The following Monday Mr. Benson interrupted independent reading time, stomping through the door with one of the long poles like they’d used to steer around Mr. Cummings. The dour man scowled at them all before his eyes locked on Ani. “Miss Romero, come with me, please.”

  Ani looked at Sam, who shrugged. She stood and approached the door. Mr. Benson twirled his finger in the air, in what looked like a sarcastic “whoop-de-do.” She gave him a puzzled look, and he did it again.

  “What—”

  “Turn around, Miss Romero.”

  She turned toward the class and felt weight on the back of her helmet as he latched the pole into place.

  “Is this necessary?”

  “Probably not,” he said. “But it’s the rules. Individuals in the special program are either to be chained together or led with catchpoles.”

  She tried to be nervous but couldn’t summon the energy. She wasn’t sure if the lack of adrenaline was a blessing or a curse. Maybe it’s both. As he led her out the door, she realized just how easy she was to steer around. With no leverage and her ankles shackled together, she could probably be controlled by a third grader despite her inhuman strength.

  “Where are we going?” she asked as Mr. Benson twisted her neck to the left.

  “Guidance Office.”

  “May I ask why?” She smiled at a black-clad kid who nodded at her from inside the Global Studies classroom. At her, not to her. There was too much reverence for a simple “hello.”

  “Sure. You’re always welcome to ask.”

  “Why?”

  “They don’t tell me.”

  Ani snorted. “Nice.”

  They passed through the hall in silence. As they entered the guidance office, the old lady behind the reception desk forced a smile. The result looked something like a white-haired bulldog trying not to throw up in terror. “Go right in.”

  A little under six feet tall, with brown hair just touched with gray, Mr. Murphy looked exactly as he had the last time she’d sat in his office, two years before. He even wore the same horn-rimmed glasses. Without hesitation or any sign of nerves he shook her hand and gestured to the loveseat.

  Mr. Benson unfastened the catchpole and closed the door, then stood at ease in front of it, his hand at rest on his pistol grip.

  “How’s things?” Ani asked.

  Mr. Murphy shrugged. “Not bad. Busy, what with all the transfers in and out.” He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “How about you?”

  She chuckled. “It’s freaking me out a little that you’re not more freaked out.”

  He smiled and gave a short nod to Mr. Benson. “I think I’m safe enough, and I’ve known you forever.”

  Ani smiled back.

  You’d never survive a real outbreak....

  “You dodged my question, though. How are you?”

  She leaned back, squirming a little in the seat to shift the cushions. “Frustrated.”

  “I understand things are...restrictive. But it’s necessary.”

  She snorted. “That’s not what I mean. I’m used to restrictions, that’s no big deal. The problem is Mr. Foster.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s nice enough, he just doesn’t know enough math or science. Or economics. He’s not qualified—”

  “He’s certified in Special Ed—”

  The coffee table cracked as she slammed her hands down. Mr. Murphy gave a nervous glance at Mr. Benson, who looked bored.

  “And I’m not a goddamned special-education student. Do you really think we belong in there with Kyle-freaking-Lee? The kid’s a freaking idiot. Lydia’s not exactly a hundred-watter, either.”

&n
bsp; Or Teah. Or Mike.

  “We’ve got Mr. Cummings and Mrs. Weller—”

  “The only reason we have them is because they’re dead, too. So yeah, we’re set with econ and English, but what about math? Science? Mr. Giggles knows less than we do.”

  “We’re working on that.”

  Ani cleared her throat to cover a snarl.

  “So anyway,” Mr. Murphy said, “the reason I called you down was to talk about college applications.”

  Ani blinked. “College applications. Seriously.”

  He pulled out a stack of manila folders and scattered them across the listing table. Fredonia, Wells, Rochester, Potsdam—her eyes locked on Potsdam. The Crane School was a forgotten dream from the days she used to breathe. Despite herself she picked up the folder and leafed through the brochures. Her eyes flitted from concert hall to practice room to renowned professors, conductors, and composers. She imagined herself at a grand piano in the Hosmer Concert Hall, the lights dimmed—

  She snapped the folder closed and pushed it across the table. “Yeah, right.”

  Mr. Murphy’s puzzled scowl boiled her long-congealed blood. Is he stupid, naive, or about to lie to my face?

  “What?” he said. “You’ve got a great chance of getting in there.”

  “I don’t have a great chance of getting in anywhere. There isn’t a school in the world that would take me, unless a judge forced them to.”

  “That’s—”

  “Not going to happen. We can’t even get a judge to declare us human, and we’re no closer to a cure than we were eighteen months ago.” Or four years ago.

  Mr. Murphy sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Look, Ani...let’s assume for the time being that you have a future.”

  She snorted. “Why, so you can pretend to do your job?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t deserve that.”

  She opened her mouth, shut it, and tried again. “Yeah. Probably not. But I don’t see the point in applying to colleges that will never let me attend.”

  He put his elbows back on his knees and folded his fingers together. “We won’t know unless we try.”

  Naive, then.

  “Alright. I give up. Give me some applications.” She looked at the clutter on his desk. Shit. “Am I supposed to fill them out in crayon?”

  He stacked up the folders with a smile. “Why don’t I send them home with your mother?”

  Her return smile stared back at her in the reflection from his glasses, a sliver of white teeth just visible between gray gums and orange bite guard. It was amazing how white your teeth stayed when bacteria refused to get anywhere near your mouth. ZV repelled every living creature, large or small...except humans. Clean up a zombie and add some perfume, and a human wouldn’t even know the difference. What lurked in the human genome that didn’t make it quiver in terror at the undead?

  “Ani?”

  She shook off the thought and took the proffered hand. “Sorry. Woolgathering.” Her stomach lurched at his proximity, a faint stab strangled by her mother’s serum.

  He turned her toward the door, where Mr. Benson waited with the catchpole. “It’s nice to have dreams again, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” she said. No point in ruining his day.

  Mr. Benson steered her back to class, unlocking the barred, steel door and walking her into the room proper. As he released the catchpole she was greeted by the worried, relieved faces of her classmates. Only Mike didn’t look gut-punched. He looked happy. Stupid happy.

  Mr. Foster was in mid-sentence about complex fractions. Devon cut him off.

  “What happened?”

  Ani shrugged. “Just a meeting with Mr. Murphy. College apps.”

  “Shit,” Kyle said. “You’d think they’d tell us that or something.”

  Sam rolled her eyes at him. “Like you were worried.”

  He crossed his arms and looked at the floor. “Not about her, just in general.”

  A shrill giggle interrupted them. “Kids, can we refocus please?”

  Ani raised an eyebrow at Kyle as she sat down. “Not worried about me, huh? So as long as whatever it is doesn’t happen to you—”

  “College?” Devon said. “Kyle?” She snorted. “Fat chance.”

  Kyle leapt to his feet and tore the wooden top off of his desk, shearing the bolts with a casual heave of his arms. “You know what, bitch? I may not be Mr. Super-Smart Guy or whatever, but at least I’m not a bitch, bitch.” He half-lunged at her, arms outstretched.

  Mike hugged him from behind, trapping his arms against his chest.

  “Hi, Kyle.”

  “Get OFF me, moron!” He struggled, whipping his head back and forth and kicking at Mike’s ankles. Mike squeezed tighter, his massive arms not even budging under the onslaught.

  “Be nice, Kyle.” It was the first time in forever that Ani had seen Mike scowl. Air groaned out of Kyle’s slack lips, and Ani heard something crack. “Be nice.”

  A light blazed in the back of the room, and they all turned, then froze. Another yard-long arc of flame spurted from the nozzle of Mr. Clark’s flamethrower. Mr. Foster’s giggle clawed at Ani’s skull as Mr. Clark took his left hand off of the red button on the wall.

  Mr. Clark flipped up his helmet and looked at them one by one, the blue flame blazing in his eyes. “Mike. Kyle. I’m going to have to ask you all to sit down. Right now.” Kyle stopped struggling and sat the moment Mike let him go. Mike sat on the floor and smiled at Devon. Mr. Clark dropped his visor and leaned back against the wall.

  Mr. Foster’s normally-pale face held no blood. He licked his lips and looked from the pilot light, to the shattered desk, to the students, and back. A sound lurched from his mouth, half-laugh, half-sob. The hysterical wail didn’t stop as he collapsed into his chair, hands covering his face.

  Miss Pulver rushed to his side and knelt, her soothing murmurs almost inaudible as she patted his shoulder. Sam picked up her e-reader and opened Rodney Walther’s Broken Laces. Everyone else just stared.

  Moments later the door clanged open. Mr. Benson escorted Dr. Banerjee in, flanked by two soldiers. Dr. Banerjee nodded toward the teacher’s desk. “Get him to the nurse’s office.” They helped Mr. Foster to his feet. As they led him out of the room Dr. Banerjee turned to Mr. Benson. “Bring Kyle.” Without another word he walked out.

  A soldier entered with a catchpole, this one with a leather collar as well as a ring-clip. Mr. Benson crooked a finger at Kyle. “Mr. Lee.”

  Kyle rolled his eyes, walked up to Mr. Benson, and turned around. He sulked in place as the soldier locked the pole to the back of his helmet, then looped the collar around his neck. “I don’t know what the hell I did, but that asshole cracked my—” The soldier pushed a button and the collar strangled him with a pneumatic hiss, the leather biting into his graying skin. Kyle’s gritted teeth turned into mouthed profanities as they steered him out of the room.

  The door slammed shut.

  “Is he going to get suspended?” Lydia asked no one in particular.

  * * *

  They didn’t see Kyle the rest of the day, and he wasn’t in his room that night. It was almost midnight by the time Dr. Romero got home, deep bags under her eyes, limbs heavy.

  She shuffled inside the apartment and froze when she saw Ani on the couch. “You should be in the bath.”

  “I know,” Ani said. “But I’m worried about Kyle, and ‘I’ll be home late’ wasn’t specific enough.”

  Sarah shut the door with her foot, set down her satchel, and collapsed on the couch next to Ani. Pulling her close, she whispered, “I don’t think Kyle will be a problem anymore.”

  Ani pulled back in horror. “Mom! You can’t mean—”

  “No, baby girl.” She brushed her hand against Ani’s cheek. “He’s not dead. But he’s been...disciplined. Words worked with Devon after the cafeteria incident. Words weren’t working for that boy, so a more direct approach was taken.”

  “What did you do?”

&nb
sp; Sarah didn’t say anything for a while. The silent apartment shuddered as the main air intake for the lab cycled off. They’d long since passed the point where they pretended to be completely honest with one another, but they kept few secrets. She sighed as the air kicked off. “I did what I was ordered to do, and I don’t want to think about it right now. You’ll know soon enough.”

  Ani hugged her, and they held each other for a while.

  “Get in the bath, honey.”

  “Okay, Mom.”

  Chapter

  12

  Kyle wasn’t on the bus that morning, and when they got to school, Devon and Sam were separated into their own chain-gang-of-two, while Ani was collared on a catchpole. The collar around her neck brought a brief spasm of panic as she thought of Kyle, but the soldier didn’t tighten it, and the moment passed.

  “What the hell is this?” Devon asked no one in particular.

  “Math class,” Sam said. She spread her lips in what might have been a grin around the bite guard and flashed her eyebrows.

  “What?” Devon asked.

  “Dad told me yesterday. I thought it’d be a cool surprise so I didn’t tell you.” She looked at Ani. “We’ve been approved to take math class, so first period we’ve got calculus with Mr. Robison, and you’ve got precalc with Mr. Gursslin.”

  Ani didn’t know what to say. Before she had a chance to say it, her escort whisked her off down the hall and through the open door of Mr. Gursslin’s room. Everything looked familiar, from the Smart Board, to the dry-erase homework board, to the graph paper pads stacked on the radiator.

  The half-empty room sported a gaggle of once-underclassmen that Ani only kind of knew, and seven black-clad strangers who bowed their heads at her gaze.

  Oh, Lordy.

  In the back corner of the room sat an iron desk identical to the ones in the Special Dead room, only this one sat in a four-by-four welded-steel cage.

  She wanted to roll her eyes, to protest, to rage against the indignity. Instead she walked into the cage, allowed her escort to collapse the catchpole and maneuver it through the bars, close and lock the door, then release the collar. She sat down and found a box of crayons and a stack of white copier paper on the shelf underneath the desk.