Willful Machines (18 page)

I didn't like where this was going. I waded through the twisted-up jeans and damp towels to stand next to him.

“Here's the plan,” he whispered underneath the Shakespeare. He lifted the jar of Swarmbots from my hoodie pocket, unscrewed the lid, and shook out the bottle just outside the window. “We'll crawl along this branch to the trunk.” He pointed at the limb where Nevermore had perched. “Then we'll climb across to that branch there, which'll take us to the window of the boys' washroom. Presto: we'll be free.”

I could feel it starting: my palms growing clammy, my breath coming fast and shallow. Standing next to Nico near the edge of a cliff was one thing. This was another. “Or else we could stay here,” I said, like I was just tossing out options. “That could be fun, right? I could help you with your lines for real.”

He'd already sat down on the sill and swung one leg over. “But I have something really cool to show you. It'll be worth it, I promise.”

Just do what he says
, I ordered myself.
Don't screw this up.
But tendrils of sweat had begun slithering down my back. My knees had turned to rubber. I grabbed the side of the window.

“You all right?” Nico said.

I adjusted my glasses and cleared my throat. “Listen, Nico. There's something you should know. The truth is, I'm not very good with heights.”

He looked from me to the tree outside, his forehead furrowed. “What about yesterday? Didn't you use Rapunzel to climb down from your room?”

“Yeah. I sort of white-knuckled it. You should've seen me. I was a mess.”

“And when we were in the cavern, when I pulled you up to the edge of the chasm, you must've been—”

“About to puke over the side. Yeah.”

He scratched the back of his head. “Huh. And the whole time you didn't say a thing.”

“Of course I didn't. It was our first date. You think I wanted you to find out what a freak I am right away?”

“Okay, freak.” He swung his leg back into the room. “We'll stay here, then.”

I caught his hands. “Maybe I can still try, though.”

“You don't have to, Lee. As long as I'm with you, I couldn't care less what we do.”

I shook my head. “I think I should do this.”

He studied my face for a second. Then he smiled. “I think you should too.” While his disembodied voice kept reciting lines from the speaker on his desk, he sat on the sill again and shimmied onto the leafless black branch. It groaned but sank only a few inches. “See?” he said. “Not too hard. Just follow me and do what I do.”

I put my legs out the window and took a slow breath. No Rapunzel this time. No climbing harness. If I fell, nothing would catch me.
But you have Nico
, I told myself.
Focus on him.
The branch had grown right up to the wall, which made it easy to climb onto. Our pucks had switched on their lights to help us see in the darkness.

“That's it,” Nico whispered. “You can do it.”

A breeze kicked up. The branch bobbed underneath me. My fingers dug into the bark, and my eyes jumped from the branch to the ground below, which seemed to zoom away from me at a hundred miles an hour. All around, the tree's other branches wagged like scolding fingers. I groaned.

“It's okay,” Nico said. “Nothing to worry about. Just a little wind.”

Up ahead, he climbed onto the second branch, a little higher than the first but just as wide, and waited for me. He hadn't even lost one of his flip-flops yet.

“Having fun?”

“A blast,” I muttered.

“This is the homestretch. Just keep your eyes on my ass and don't look down.”

“When you put it like that . . .”

I copied his movements as I clambered from one branch to the other. The boys' washroom window glowed in front of us. We'd almost made it.

A drop splashed on the branch next to my hand. Then a few more fell. That was one thing you could always count on at Inverness Prep: whenever you thought things might start getting better, it would rain.

“Don't worry, Lee. We're just about there.”

He'd already grabbed the sill. Meanwhile, the rain had picked up, splashing my glasses and making the bark slick and slimy under my hands. I had to go even more slowly now.

“You're doing great.” Nico turned back to check on me. The rain had pulled his curls down over his forehead, where they hung in thick, heavy clumps. “I'm going to slide through the window, and then I'll help you in after me.”

He disappeared inside while I crawled the rest of the way to the window, rain streaming over my lenses and dripping from my nose. I put one hand on the sill, and he covered it with his own. He'd landed in one of the washroom shower stalls. I hauled myself through the window headfirst, while he grabbed me under the armpits to help. I toppled into his arms, his back slammed against the shower partition, and my mouth landed on his in a clumsy kiss.

“Uh, hello?” someone outside the shower stall said. “Is somebody in there?”

We stared at the stall door. Once upon a time—in other words, about two days ago—I would've gone out of my head if something like this had happened. Nico watched me, his arms still wrapped around me tight, like he thought I might try to hurl myself back out the window again. And it was true: Gutless Lee wanted to do exactly that.

But right now Kamikaze Lee was in the driver's seat. And he didn't give a crap.

I burst out laughing almost as loud as Nico usually did. Grabbing his arm, I banged open the door. We ran out, sopping wet. One of the FUUWLs stood next to the sink with a toothbrush in his hand and white foam spilling from his mouth.

“Sorry,” I said. “Didn't mean to disturb you. We just really like to shower together.”

“But only with our clothes on,” Nico added. “I mean, we're not perverts or anything.”

The FUUWL just stared while we made a quick exit through the washroom door. Outside, we just about fell on the floor we laughed so hard. But then Nico put a hand over my mouth and pointed: Ray was just around the corner. He motioned for me to follow him. We tore down the hall in the opposite direction and ducked through a door that led to an infrequently used side staircase. Curfew hadn't started yet, but if anyone spotted me wandering around the school sans armed escort, it might raise suspicions.

“I heard a rumor about you today,” Nico whispered as we padded down the stairs.

“Another one?”

“Somebody saw you heading up to Headmaster Stroud's office last night. Did you get caught? Why didn't you tell me?”

I shrugged. “It was no big deal. I just got a lecture for going out after curfew. Don't worry, though. He didn't know you were with me or anything.”

“What did he say?”

“The usual stuff about how I'm a symbol to this country, so he expects me to follow the rules and get perfect grades, just like the FUUWLs.”

“The what?”

“That's what Bex and I call those kids who made you do the Stand on Monday. The Future Unscrupulous Ultrapowerful World Leaders. And then Stroud said I don't know how good I've got it here, and I should be grateful for this hellish school, because suffering makes us stronger.”

“He seriously said that?”

“Pretty much. That's Inverness Prep for you.” I stopped halfway down a flight. “You know that rumble the waterfall makes?” I held up my finger. The low, deep roar of the river filled the silence. “Sometimes I close my eyes and listen to that rumble and imagine this place is a factory grinding us all into the same shape and then spitting us out. Making us into mindless drones like the FUUWLs. We're not being taught to think. We're being programmed.”

Nico raised his eyebrow.

“You find that funny?”

“No. I find you funny.” He pecked me on the cheek and kept going.

We reached the first floor. “Where are we headed?” I asked.

“You'll see.”

We crossed the empty front hall. Outside, the rain drummed
on the stone terrace. The clouds had swallowed up the moon. Nico pushed open the auditorium doors.

“Looks like your lock-picking skills won't be required tonight after all.”

We followed the dim floor-level lights down the aisle. Up ahead, the banner and podium had disappeared, replaced by a plain black velvet curtain hanging near the front of the stage. Nico marched up the steps as if he'd gone to school here for years, not days. He pulled me into the wings and then behind the curtain. I couldn't see a thing. Something crunched under my sneakers. He took me by the arms and positioned me just so.

“Stay there. Don't move.”

He disappeared.

“Nico?”

No answer. My fingers squirmed. It felt a little like when we'd stood in the cavern last night after we'd turned off the lights. Except this time I was alone.

“Where are you, Nico?”

Now he was starting to scare me. Bex's words echoed in my head.
That's what terrorists do, right?

A sharp
clack
made me jump. Light flooded down from the flies.

I
n front of me lay what looked like a tropical island. Near the back of the stage, rolling, grassy hills swept toward a backdrop of blue sky. Fake palm trees shot up here and there, and a stately stone gazebo stood at the top of the highest rise. A sandy beach covered the stage's front portion and on one side disappeared into the ocean, which, if you looked close, turned out to be crinkled blue cellophane. The drama society had done a good job. Even the lights above felt like real sun. As long as you faced away from the black curtain, you might almost believe you'd been transported hundreds of miles away from dark, gloomy Inverness Prep.

Nico drew up next to me. “What do you think?”

“I like it. This is the set for
The Tempest
?”

“Uh-huh.” He pulled off his bright yellow windbreaker, kicked his flip-flops to the side, and bent over to roll up his jeans. “It takes place on a remote island in the tropics.” He glanced at me. “What are you waiting for? Aren't you going to
take your shoes off?” While I unlaced my sneakers, he dipped his toe into the blue cellophane. “Mmm. Perfect.” From his backpack he pulled an oversize pink-and-lime-green-striped beach towel. He spread it out on the sand. “This place reminds me of home, actually. Lots of beaches in Chile.”

“That's right,” I said. “Doesn't Chile have almost four thousand miles of coastline?”

“Something like that.”

I'd done my research. I also now knew Chile was in South America.

Next Nico took out a pair of sunglasses, which he put on, and a lopsided straw hat, which he smacked on top of my head. He took a step back to check me out and nodded his approval. “Almost ready. Just one more thing.” He grabbed his puck, whispered into it, and tossed it back into the air. From it came the sound of lazily crashing waves. He toppled backward onto the towel, stretching out his arms and legs to full length. “This is the life.” He peeked at me from under his sunglasses. “Care to join me?”

I paused next to a palm tree and knocked on its papier-mâché trunk. “You're really into this acting stuff, huh?”

“Yeah. I signed up for my first drama class because I thought it would be an easy A. I discovered I loved it.”

“I'll bet it's cool getting to be all kinds of different people.”

He rolled onto his side and propped himself up on one elbow. “Actually, that's not quite it, at least for me. The characters I play
when I act, they might seem really different from me at first, but the more I read the lines and play the parts, the more I can relate to what they're feeling. So all those different characters just end up feeling like different aspects of me. For example, the last time I was in
The Tempest
, I played Caliban. He's this savage, deformed half-demon who spends the whole play plotting against the main character, Prospero, the ruler of the island. There wasn't much to relate to there. But when I read the lines, I realized he was just angry because Prospero had enslaved him. That made a lot of the terrible stuff he did in the play more understandable. It even got me wondering if I would've done some of the same things in his situation. My drama teacher, the lady I told you about, she used to say, ‘Reading Shakespeare helps us become more human.' ”

“I like that.”

“Shakespeare was always her favorite. He's mine, too.” He grinned at me. “You probably think I'm such a nerd.”

“You're worried that
I
think
you're
a nerd? I'm the one who's obsessed with building robots, remember?”

His laugh boomed across the stage.

“What about the character you're playing now?” I asked. “What's his story?”

“Ariel? He's a slave too. But he doesn't fight back. He plays by the rules. Not nearly as much fun.” Nico patted the towel next to him. “Take a load off, Lee. Get some sun.”