The Paladin Prophecy

STUDENT-CITIZENS

The black retro phone on Will’s desk rang with a musical but insistent trill. Will fumbled out of bed to the receiver.

“Hello?” he mumbled.

“Good morning, Mr. West. It’s seven a.m. on Thursday, November ninth. Welcome to your first full day at the Center.”

A female voice, pleasant, chatty, and cheerful. The squashed and hammered vowels of the upper Midwest.

“Thank you,” said Will. “Who is this?”

He tried to pull the phone toward the bed, but its heavy-duty cloth cord ran only a few feet from the wall and wouldn’t budge when he yanked on it.

“Dr. Robbins requested we give you a wake-up call today. And remind you, Mr. West, that you have an appointment with her at nine o’clock sharp—”

“I know, I know—”

“—at Nordby Hall. That’s the main administration building. Room two forty-one. Would’ja like directions or maybe a map?”

“No, thanks, I know where it is.”

“Great! It’s gonna be a real nice day. Sunny, with light winds, and a high of thirty-eight degrees—”

“Wow. A heat wave.”

“Oh, yah, you betcha. Much nicer. But cold weather builds character, ya know, so get out there and enjoy it now.”

“What’s your name?” asked Will again.

“I’m just one of the switchboard operators, Mr. West. So are you awake now, then? That time change deal can be a real bear—”

“I promise, I’m awake.”

“Good, good, good. They’re serving breakfast in the cafeteria if you want to grab a bite before your meeting. Have yourself a great day now, Mr. West.”

The operator, whoever she was, ended the call. Will heard something like elevator music. He hung up and really looked at the phone for the first time. He lifted it; it felt inordinately heavy, at least two pounds. He couldn’t find any seams or screws, as if it had been constructed out of a solid block of material. There were no numbers to push. Just one big round button in the middle of its face: glossy white enamel, with a black capital C in the center.

He picked up the receiver again and pressed that big C button. Instantly, an operator responded: “Good morning, Mr. West. How can I help you today?”

If this wasn’t the same woman, it was someone who sounded exactly like her. Will hung up without speaking. He quickly showered and dressed in his new school threads: blue long-sleeved polo, gray khakis, and winter boots. He clipped the black pager onto his belt and slipped Dave’s dark glasses into his pocket, then checked himself out in the full-length mirror on the back of the closet door. A shiver of strangeness ran through him; he looked like one of the kids in the school brochure.

That’s me. I’m a student at the Center now.

“Good to be alive,” he muttered.

Ajay was in the great room when Will came out, and offered to join him for breakfast. They walked outside together. The operator had been right; it was nowhere near as cold as yesterday. This time it took three whole minutes before Will felt like his face had frozen through to his skull.

“What’s with the ladies on the phone?” he asked.

“The switchboard operators?” Ajay’s eyes widened. “Oh, they’re very mysterious.”

“In what way?”

“No one knows who they are or where they work. They’re always there, instantly, when you pick up any phone, but no one’s ever seen them. And they never tell you their names.”

“But they must be somewhere on campus. She sure sounded local.”

“I know,” said Ajay. “Like everyone’s favorite auntie. You can almost smell the apple pie she’s baking in the oven for you.”

They entered the cafeteria. The room was as big as a department store, teeming with teenagers who seemed far more alert and energetic than any kids he’d ever seen this early in the day.

Maybe it’s the coffee. They fell into one of two lines around a massive buffet that offered a staggeringly comprehensive breakfast. The roommates loaded up their plates and sat at a corner table. Will thought of himself as a big eater, but for the second meal in a row, he watched Ajay shovel enough down his gullet to power a Clydesdale. Pound for pound, the little guy ate at a championship level.

“Look at this,” said Will. “Must cost a small fortune to go here.”

“I’m told it’s a large fortune, but I don’t actually know. I’m here on full scholarship.”

“You too?”

“I told you, old boy,” said Ajay. “We’re kindred spirits.”

“How did they find you?”

“A test I took at my old school in eighth grade. Dr. Robbins showed up two months later—four-fifteen p.m., Wednesday, February fourth, 2009—and that was that.”

“Did anything specific about you interest them?” asked Will.

“Not at the time. But since then they’ve shown some interest in an ability of mine.” Ajay looked around furtively. “Do you want me to tell you?”

“Okay.”

“I have unusually good eyesight,” said Ajay, lowering his voice. “The standard for excellence is 20/20. Meaning one sees at twenty feet what most people see from that distance. Top-gun fighter pilots average 20/12, meaning they see at twenty feet what most people do at twelve. Mine, they think, is 20/6.”

“Man, that’s like an eagle.”

“I’m told eagles are 20/4, but they’ve never persuaded one to take the test. And this doesn’t run in my family. Both my parents wear glasses, and without them my father’s blind as a bat.” Ajay hesitated. “And that’s not all.”

Will waited patiently.

“I have a second ability,” said Ajay, “but you have to assure me you won’t tell anyone.”

“Absolutely.”

Ajay leaned in and whispered, “In the last few years, I’ve realized that I possess, quite literally, a photographic memory. I remember everything I see.”

“Doubtful.”

“That’s the usual reaction. Hand me that newspaper.”

Will handed him a copy of the school paper—the Daily Knight—that had been left on the next table. Ajay took a quick glance and handed it back. Then, as Will read along, he recited the entire page word for word, without pausing.

“You could have memorized this earlier,” said Will, still skeptical.

“I could have. But I didn’t.”

“So you not only see everything,” said Will, “but you also remember everything you see.”

“I haven’t even told them this part,” said Ajay, leaning in farther. “I remember everything that’s ever happened to me.”

“Really? Could you always?”

“I must have been able to, but I never really thought of it as out of the ordinary. Until I realized”—he tapped his head—“everything’s in here, filed and stored by day, date, and time, like a hard drive.”

Will asked carefully, “Why don’t you want anyone to know about this?”

“I’m afraid that if word got out, other students would pester me to help them study. Or cheat. Or the school would start examining me. Perhaps I’m paranoid, but I’d just as soon keep it to myself.”

“I know the feeling,” said Will.

“Why? What brought them to your door?”

“That same test.” Will hesitated again. “I got an … unusually high score.”

“So we have that in common as well.”

Will wondered if that was true about all his roommates—surely not Nick—and his mind drifted back to what he’d learned about their pod the night before. “What was Ronnie Murso good at?”

“Everything,” said Ajay. “He excelled at excellence. Smartest kid I’ve ever known. He was designing computer games at seven. He spent most of last year in the labs working on some massive project but never told us what it was.”

“Why?”

“He had hopes of selling it, I suppose. Students can patent anything they develop here, and a few have made piles of money. I got the impression Ronnie was afraid someone might steal his idea.”

“Was it a game?”

“I don’t know. I’m a hardware man myself. Give me a tool kit and a bucket of bolts and I’ll tinker till the end of time. Ronnie was a dreamer, with a grand perspective. A visionary, really. Which makes his loss all the more painful.”

Glancing around, Will noticed Brooke at a table on the other side of the room, sitting across from the same cocky jerk he’d chased off the day before, Todd Hodak. Brooke looked tense and, Will thought, unhappy. This guy Todd is pressuring her.

“Will, call me meshuggener but I have a good feeling about you,” said Ajay, flashing his big bright smile. “You feel as solid to me as a beam of cobalt steel. I don’t say this lightly, to anyone, but I know I can trust you.”

Will wasn’t used to people speaking so openly to him. Not even people he’d known much longer than Ajay. He liked Ajay a lot, but he’d never really had a close friend before. He wanted to say “I trust you, too,” and felt like that was true, but his thoughts got so tangled up with his cautious past that he didn’t know how to begin.

Before he could say anything, a weird look crossed Ajay’s face. Like he’d just been ordered to do something. He stood up quickly, picked up his tray, turned around, and ran straight into someone.

Lyle Ogilvy had walked up behind him without a sound. When Ajay hit him, his tray toppled and the remains of Ajay’s breakfast scattered. A partially eaten waffle plopped onto Lyle’s right wingtip. Maple syrup oozed between the laces.

“I’m so terribly sorry,” said Ajay, turning ashen.

“Yes, you are,” said Lyle calmly, without moving. “Clean that up. Now.”

“Of course, Lyle, right away.”

The room grew quiet around them. Ajay fumbled a fistful of napkins from the dispenser on the table. Lyle never took his eyes off Will.

“You don’t have to do that, Ajay,” said Will.

“No, it’s no trouble at all. My fault entirely.”

Will reached out and stayed Ajay’s hand. “Don’t.”

“Please, Will,” whispered Ajay. “It’s better if I do.”

Will stood up as Ajay bent down to clean Lyle’s shoe. Lyle looked at Will and smiled pleasantly.

“You didn’t give him room to get up,” said Will. “That was your fault.”

“Why don’t you clean it up for him, then?” said Lyle, his smile broadening.

Kids all around them turned to watch. Todd Hodak and a couple of other bruisers drifted their way. Ajay looked up at Will, from his hands and knees, silently pleading with him not to interfere.

Lyle leaned in and whispered, “I know about you. I know all about you.”

Will picked up their table’s maple syrup dispenser and stepped next to Lyle. He lowered his voice and leaned in so only he could hear, and grabbed Lyle’s belt. “Question for you, Lyle,” Will whispered back. “You ever sat through class with a pint of maple syrup down your pants?”

The smile left Lyle’s face. Vivid red dots appeared on his cheeks.

“No?” asked Will. “Want to try?”

Ajay paused over Lyle’s foot, looking up, unsure what to do.

“Sell ‘scary hall monitor’ someplace else,” whispered Will. “I’m not buying.”

Lyle turned abruptly and stalked away. The shoe with syrup on it squeaked with every step and made his odd splayed gait even more ungainly. Todd Hodak and the other older kids flocked around Lyle. Will caught Brooke’s eye: She’d watched the whole exchange and flashed him a subtle thumbs-up.

“Put that down and follow me,” said Ajay. “Fast.”

Will followed him outside, where Ajay pulled Will around the corner. They sprinted out of sight. Glancing back, they saw Todd Hodak and two others run out of the union looking for them.

Ajay pushed Will back against the building, out of sight. “Good God, man, are you completely insane?”

“He was out of line,” said Will.

“But you can’t treat Lyle Ogilvy that way—”

“No, he can’t treat you that way. And next time he’ll think twice about it,” said Will. “Why did you stand up so suddenly like that?”

“I don’t know,” said Ajay, looking confused. “I guess … I guess I thought it was time to go and … I don’t really remember standing up, to be honest. Why?”

“Just curious,” said Will.

“Anyway, my sincerest thanks for interceding. But next time, please, let’s discuss these things in advance.”

Will agreed. They shook hands as they parted.

“I trust you, too, Ajay,” said Will.

Will found Nordby Hall without trouble and was outside Dr. Robbins’s office when she hurried in at two minutes to nine wearing a fawn-colored suede skirt, brown boots, and a ribbed cream turtleneck sweater. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold.

“Dad’s rule number fifty-four,” said Will. “If you can’t be on time, be early.”

“I like that one. Come on in.”

He followed Robbins into her office, which was full of morning light from windows that looked over the campus. Big canvases—seaside landscape paintings—dominated two walls, spare images of surf and sand in pale soothing colors. Her desk was made of glass and stainless steel, her bookshelves thick chunks of glass suspended on cables. No clutter, everything clean and efficient, including a large relaxed sofa, a coffee table, and two chairs. Will wondered if she counseled students while they sat on that sofa; Robbins was, after all, a psychologist. He made a point of sitting in a chair instead.

“So how was your first evening? Did you meet all your roommates?”

He told her the other kids had taken him out to dinner and that they all seemed very nice. She sat across from him, holding two folders.

“I asked Mr. McBride to come by so we can discuss your schedule, but before I get to that …” She opened one of the folders on the table. “After what you told me yesterday, I requested a copy of the test you took in September.”

Will read NATIONAL SCHOLASTIC EVALUATION AGENCY across the top of a bound text, about sixteen pages long. He recognized the questions on the first page.

“Is that yours?” she asked.

The proctor in charge had used a machine to stamp each copy when kids turned them in. The stamp on Will’s read 11:43 a.m.

“It looks like it.”

“The test began at nine o’clock. You had three hours to complete it. You turned yours in at seventeen minutes to noon—look at the time stamp. You told me you finished it in twenty minutes.” She didn’t sound mad, or accusatory, just neutral.

“I did,” said Will.

“Why didn’t you turn it in when you finished?”

“Same reason. I waited until half the group turned theirs in first—”

“So you wouldn’t stand out. I get it. Do you have any way to prove that you finished it in twenty minutes?”

“No. But that’s the truth.”

Robbins took a moment, collecting her thoughts. She set a single page in front of him: the results of his test from the National Scholastic Evaluation Agency.

“You answered every question correctly,” she said. “Four hundred and seventy-five questions. Science, math, logic, English, and reading comprehension. Explain how you could have done that in twenty minutes if you weren’t trying—”

“I can’t, I don’t know—”

“—and how this was part of your plan to blend in?”

“I didn’t mean to do that. I only glanced at it. I didn’t try to get them wrong on purpose. I just checked the first thing that came into my head.”

“So how do we account for it? Luck? Intuition? They’ve been conducting these tests for decades and this has never happened before. Not once, out of millions. You didn’t see a copy of the test beforehand, did you?”

“No. They didn’t even tell us ahead of time. They just showed up that day and laid it on us.”

Robbins looked at him hard. “Well, I don’t know what to think about this.”

Will’s heart raced to the edge of panic. “Do you think I cheated? Are you going to take back my scholarship?”

“No, Will. That’s not even a consideration. As unlikely as this seems, I believe you. Not only do I think you deserve to be here, but also I believe you need to be. I can’t tell you exactly why I feel that way, any more than I can explain how this happened.”

Will thought about it. “Who else could have seen these results?”

“I don’t know, outside of the Agency,” she said, then looked up at him alertly. “You think the people who came looking for you had access to your test.”

“Maybe,” said Will. “I can’t think of another reason why total strangers would take an interest in me. What do you know about this company?”

“The National Scholastic Evaluation Agency’s been in business for over twenty-five years—”

“But who are they? A private company?”

“As far as I know they’re a nonprofit foundation that receives some government funding—”

There was a knock at the door. Dan McBride opened it and looked in with a smile. “Hope we’re not intruding?” he asked.

McBride entered, followed by Headmaster Rourke. Both shook Will’s hand and exchanged pleasantries as they sat. “We spent hours discussing you yesterday, Will,” said Rourke. “Your ears must have been burning.”

“Why?”

“You present a dilemma for us,” said Rourke. “With only five weeks left in the term, it’s neither sensible nor fair to place you on a grading curve. So you’ll just be auditing courses for now. It’ll give you time to catch up before the new term, acclimate to life here. It’s not just our goal to educate students; we want to create student-citizens.” Rourke nodded at McBride.

“Here, then, are the units we’d like to start with,” said McBride.

McBride handed him a list with four classes that sounded nothing like any he’d ever taken before. All but the last had extensive reading lists:

CIVICS: PROFILES IN POWER AND REALPOLITIK

AMERICAN LITERATURE: EMERSON, THOREAU, AND THE AMERICAN IDEAL

SCIENCE: GENETICS—TOMORROW’S SCIENCE TODAY

PHYSICAL EDUCATION: FALL SPORTS

“One meets Tuesdays and Thursdays,” said McBride. “The others on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The phys ed unit runs through the week.”

Will pointed to American Literature. “Is this your class, Mr. McBride?”

“I’m afraid I couldn’t resist,” said McBride with a grin.

“As far as sports are concerned,” said Rourke, “it’s also too late for you to officially join teams, but no one objects to your training with them.”

“Cross-country?” asked Will.

“I’ve already spoken to Coach Jericho. If you like, you can pick up your gear at the field house after class today and get back on the track.”

After two days without training, Will couldn’t wait to run again. His body and mind craved the relief. “Done,” he said.

The headmaster stood up and shook his hand. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Will, I’m late for a staff meeting.”

Rourke took his leave. They were about to resume when Will’s pager beeped. A red light flashed inside the grill. He pushed the button and the beeping stopped.

“I’m supposed to check with an operator, isn’t that right?” asked Will.

“Use my phone,” said Robbins. “Hit zero. An operator will put you through.”

“I did have one question for you guys,” said Will as he moved to the phone.

“What’s that, Will?” asked McBride.

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