This is Chapter Two of Brain Slaves, the story of Nelly Kidd’s struggle for freedom in a world where the corporate takeover of education has turned students into, “brain slaves.”
Chapter One can be read here:
Chapter Two
“Come to me….”
The first thing I thought was that the lesson was over, they had unplugged me and my brain was fried — they’d turned me into a Flunker.
The second thing I thought was, “Hey, I’m thinking.” I mean, my brain was working, I could think clearly. The mental freeze of the lesson was gone.
In front of me were those colored lights — bright and glowing, but instead of swirling around, they had stretched into lines forming a kind of path or tunnel. It was as if the tunnel was made of neon tubes or laser beams in rich colors — red, green, yellow, white, orange and blue. Some were on the floor, some were above me and some were waist high. Some were solid and a few were pulsating or flashing. In the spaces between the beams I could see only darkness.
“Come on!” the voice urged me. “I can’t hold it open long.”
And then something even weirder happened — I talked.
“Hold what open?” I asked.
Okay, I know, not the best question. I should have asked, like, “Who are you?” Or, “What the hell is going on here?” I should have asked, “How can I be talking during a lesson?”
But the voice answered me anyway.
“The path,” he said, impatiently. “Just follow it.”
So I did.
I don’t know exactly how I did it that first time. Moving on the Net isn’t like walking. You’re not using your legs because you’re not really going anywhere. It’s all in your mind. The best way I ever heard it explained is that your brain paths, the connections between your brain cells, get extended into the electronic pathways of the Net. You just follow those paths by thinking. It’s kind of what they do to us when they download a lesson into our brains, only you do it in reverse, you sort of upload your brain into the Net. Anyway, it doesn’t feel like walking, more like floating. When you get good at it and you can travel fast, it feels like flying.
Even now, after all this time, I can’t explain how you do it. No one can teach you how— you just have to learn it by trying. But it helps to have someone guide you along and that’s what the voice was doing.
“This way,” he said, “Come on!”
And then I was moving along the tunnel.
“That’s it, Nelly!” the voice said. “Keep going. Hurry up.”
“I’m doing my best!” I protested. “And anyway, who are you?”
“I’m Cal,” he replied. “Cal Stone.”
“Cal,” I repeated. He sounded like a teenager — not a kid, but not grown-up either. “And how do you know my name? And where are you?”
“Your name is on your file. I’m in class just like you — but not at your school. Watch out!”
I felt a sharp pain, worse than any I had ever felt in a lesson, like an icy cold knife between my eyes and down my spine. I looked down — I had brushed up against one of the flashing lines.
“Watch where you’re going!” Cal scolded.
“What are those?” I said, as I backed away.
“Those are the lesson feeds, downloading into your brain. If you hit them wrong you’ll get fried. Now, come on — we’re going to run out of time.”
I hesitated. I did not want to get fried.
“Come on,” he urged. “Just be careful! Watch where you’re going.”
“How are you doing this?”
“I can’t explain now — no time. Keep going.”
“Going where?”
“Into the Net.”
“The Net? But that’s off limits.”
“So what?” He laughed, giggled almost. “I can show you how to use it.”
My mom and dad had told me about the time before the Collapse when anyone could use the Net. People had their own computers and even phones that could send videos and messages to each other. Also people had more money, so they could afford things like that. But since the Collapse only the government had computers and access to the Net. The closest we ever got was when we were plugged in during our lessons.
“You can use the Net?” I asked Cal.
“They use it on us every time we go to school,” he said. “But you can use it however you want — if you know how. Come on, you’re almost there. I can see you.”
I stopped. That sounded kind of creepy. How did I know who this Cal Stone was? How did I know this wasn’t some sort of trick or test the Educators had set up? How did I know it was even real?
And then I was flying.
The lines zoomed past. For a split second, I saw the figure of a person, a man or a tall teenager. But it went by too quickly for me to get a good look. I came to a place were several paths met, and without knowing why, I found myself turning and flying in another direction. In the next instant I was in an open space where the lines of the path widened into a big, circular room. Floating around in the air were dozens, maybe hundreds, of glowing cubes, about five inches on a side, each a different color.
“Where are you?” Cal shouted. “I saw you for a second, then you disappeared.”
“I don’t know,” I called back. “I’m in some kind of room with floating cubes.
“You’re in a library!” he said. “You went too fast! Don’t touch anything. I’ll find you.”
But I wasn’t really listening. I was watching the cubes as they spun slowly around. They were pretty, the way they glowed with a light from inside. Right in front of me was a bright yellow one, just waist high. Before I knew what I was doing, I reached out and…
“Nelly!” Cal shouted. “Wait!”
It was too late. My fingers closed around the cube and then went right through it. For a split second I felt a buzz through my whole body, like a very mild electric shock and then…
Then I was waking up, on my chair in the classroom. The Educator was cleaning off the electrodes and storing them away. She gave me a funny look.
“What happened?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“During the lesson,” she snapped. “Did anything strange happen?”
You mean did I hear a strange voice talking to me that said I was getting on the Net? Did I fly around and then pick up a weird glowing cube?
“No,” I said automatically. Never tell the truth to an Educator. Everybody knows that.
She frowned and looked at the screen on the side of my chair.
“These readings are off,” she said, almost to herself. Then she shrugged. “But it does say you had a lesson.”
“In what?” I asked.
“Does it matter?” she grumbled, then turned away to unplug the next kid.
That’s the way it always was. After a lesson you never knew what you had “learned.” It might be something practical, like basic math or it might be some skill for a job you would have in the future. You didn’t even know what the job was. Each year the Educators (really, some computer programs) figured out how far you had gone the previous year and what jobs you could most easily be trained for. Then they set up your lesson plan for the year. You had no say in it.
As long as your brain could take it, they kept downloading into it. When they figured you had reached your limit, you were done. Then they graduated you and handed you a certificate that said what you were qualified to do.
That’s what the final exam was for — every year you had to take one. That’s when they tested your brain pathways to see what you had kept from your lessons and how much more education you could take. The final exam was like a regular lesson on steroids — twice as painful and twice the chance of becoming a Flunker. But even after a final exam, you still might not know exactly what you had learned.
Of course, you might find out what you knew by accident. Like, you might be watching a nature show on TV and suddenly realize you knew every type of bird that lived in South America. Or you were figuring out the price of a half-pound of cheese and you found out you could divide fractions. Plus there were all the stories about kids who wandered onto a basketball court and found out they could sink a lay-up shot with either hand or kids who picked up a guitar for the first time and could play any song off the radio. Yeah, sometimes the lessons were for things you might actually want to know, or do. But it wasn’t up to you to choose. You took whatever they decided to give you.
When I was six and had my first lesson, I hated it, but I was amazed to find out on the way home that I suddenly knew how to read street signs and billboards. Same thing a couple of weeks later when I realized I could add and subtract. At least then I knew what I was learning and what it was for.
But now I had no idea what had just gone into my brain. All I wanted to do was get out of there before they could ask me more questions. As soon as the Educator turned her back, I stood up and headed for the door.
I bumped into Kemal, or he bumped into me. He reached out a hand to steady himself against the wall. He must have had a rough lesson because he didn’t look so good.
I couldn’t help myself.
“Hey, Kemal,” I said. “Maybe you should have studied.”
He just grimaced at me. Too sick to speak, I guess.
Out in the hallway I turned left and headed for the Recovery Room. For once, I felt like I didn’t need it. No dizziness, no strange cramps, no spots in my eyes, not even much of a headache. I came around the corner and went into the big room - it was full of kids from every class.
The Recovery Room used to be the gym, back when kids spent all day in school and needed some time to blow off steam. You could still see the outlines of the basketball court on the dark wooden floor. But I’d only known it as the Recovery Room, with rows of chairs and cheap cots where you could lie down if you needed and a table where a nurse sat and would give you water or juice or pain pills if you asked.
I headed across the room toward the big metal doors at the far end. Then I realized I was the only one walking that fast. Everyone else was dragging along. There was a long line of kids waiting for their pills and a dozen or so had stopped to sit or lie down. Would one of the nurses notice that I wasn’t sick? Or one of the Monitors at the door? I didn’t want any more questions about what had happened, so I stopped and held my head, like I was feeling dizzy.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. “You okay, Nelly?” a girl asked.
It was Rosie Suarez. She was in the same class as me, a few chairs over. I usually didn’t run into her after class, because usually I was a lot slower getting out. But Rosie was an “A” student, one of those kids who made it a point of pride never to complain, never show anyone they were sick, never take a pain pill (or at least never let anyone see them take a pain pill). I don’t know what the “A” stood for. Advanced? Achiever? Ambitious? Arrogant? That’s just what everyone called kids like that.
“A” students were always ready to take the next lesson, no matter how much it hurt. They were going to beat the system and make it as far as they could. Rosie was one of the best, or worst, depending on how you looked at it. Like I said, most kids, including me, never wore good clothes to school. First of all you might get sick on them and second of all, what difference did it make?
Like that day, I was wearing my oldest pair of jeans with ripped knees, my old running shoes and a green tee shirt with some paint stains on it. I had my canvas tote bag on my shoulder. But Rosie was wearing a bright orange skirt and a flowered blouse and shiny silver flats. Her long brown hair was pulled back neatly from her tan face. Her headband matched her blouse and her bag matched her skirt. She was even wearing makeup: orange-red lip-gloss and she’d done her eyebrows and lashes. I have to admit she looked nice. I know the boys thought so. They were always staring at her when we lined up before class.
I guess I could have hated Rosie, but I didn’t. Not even when she wore her, “I [Heart] School” shirt. I mean, who does that? But she was always friendly and never acted like she was better than everyone else, even when the Educators complimented her on how well she took her lessons. And then, you had to make allowances for her on account of her brother, Hector. He was a Dropout. In fact, Hector was kind of king of all the Dropouts in the neighborhood. His gang was always hanging out after school, picking on kids, pushing them around, taking their pocket money, just generally being jerks.
Yeah, you could become a Dropout, but it wasn’t easy. Basically, you had to be such a pain that the Monitors got sick of chasing you down and hauling you into school on lesson days. At some point they figured you were more trouble than it was worth. But it wasn’t quite that simple, because before they would let you go, they made you sign the Dropout Release. That’s not what it was really called, but that’s what it was.
The Release was a long legal document that took twenty pages to say that once you signed it, you could never get a real job. The Department of Education would not give you your work certificate, even for the lessons you’d already had. The government would not give you your tax number. No real employer would hire you. You were a nobody, and for the rest of your life. You’d have to live off relatives or handouts or steal or deal drugs or do something else that was off the books. In return, you never had to go to school again. They came to your house and made you and your parents sign it, and then they registered you with the police and put your name and photo on TV on the evening news.
Some kids thought it was worth it.
So I always thought that Rosie tried so hard to be an “A” student to make up for the fact that her brother was the most famous Dropout in our part of Bridgetown. She was out to prove that someone in her family could make it. But in spite of that, she was nice. She was being nice now.
“You want a pain pill?” she asked and put her hand on my elbow as if to guide me to the nurse’s table.
“No, that’s okay,” I said, trying to act like my head hurt.
Rosie nodded. “I can get it for you, if you want.”
She thought I was being proud, refusing to get help, because that’s what she did. “A” students toughed it out, without complaint. So I let her think that.
“No, really,” I said, standing up straighter, like it was an effort. “Let’s just go.”
So we went out, practically arm in arm, past the two Monitors at the door, who just stared straight ahead.
We had to squint in the bright sunlight as we came out on the gray stone steps. It was still winter, and we pulled on our jackets. Mine was an old, navy wool pea coat. Hers was new looking, silver and puffy. She also put on a cool pair of sunglasses. They went with her outfit.
The school was at our backs, the old athletic field was in front of us, surrounded by a tall chain link fence. It wasn’t really a field, more like a big dusty yard with a few clumps of weeds here and there. I stayed with Rosie as we walked down the steps and turned left to the street. When we got to the sidewalk we both turned right along the fence, walking away from the school. I felt like running, getting away from there, but instead I walked along with Rosie, trailing my hand along the rough metal links, bumping from one diamond to the next. There were jagged holes in the fence every dozen feet or so, but like everything else in Bridgetown, no one ever repaired them. Some boys from an earlier class had recovered enough to play soccer on the field. They kicked up clouds of dust as they yelled and chased around the old, scuffed ball, school and lessons forgotten for now.
When we got to the corner, the sidewalk was pretty empty. Most of the other kids were scattering, eager to get away from the place, get home and chill out. On the other side of the street, across from school, were two-story row houses, with brown or red brick faces. Some had neat little gardens or planted yard, but others just had broken cement instead of plants or a jumble of old random junk in front, like a rusty bicycle and a torn up easy chair. It wasn’t the worst neighborhood in Bridgetown, not by a long shot. Most of the people here had jobs of some kind, which meant they’d made it through at least a few years of school before the Educators cut them loose and gave them their certificates.
“What are you doing now?” Rosie asked. That surprised me. Was Rosie asking me if I wanted to hang out? That was another thing that had never happened before.
“Uh, just going home,” I said, trying to sound cool about it.
“You want to hang out at my house?”
I didn’t know what I thought about that. I didn’t even know where Rosie lived. But why not?
I had a strange thought — maybe what had happened to me in the lesson had happened to her. Maybe that’s what happened to all “A” students and that’s why school was easier for them. I didn’t want to just come out and ask her, but if we were hanging out, watching TV or whatever, I could probably work it into the conversation. Maybe I was an “A” student and didn’t even know it.
So I started to say, “Yeah, sure,” but that’s when Hector and his gang showed up across the street.
They came strutting along, with that low-slung way of walking all Dropouts seem to have. Hector was in front, naturally, with six of his buddies slouching along behind. They didn’t have a uniform or anything. That was the way the Dropouts were, they didn’t go by any rules, not even their own.
I knew a couple of them, by sight at least. One was a goofy guy named Louis who was wearing a mismatched tracksuit, green jacket over red pants. He was about as tall as Hector and solidly built, with a pink, shaved head that I guess he thought made him look cool but just made him look bald.
A guy named Pauley wore an old jean jacket with patches from some rock bands on the shoulders. Another wore what looked like his father’s old blue suit with the cuffs and sleeves turned up. Hector didn’t wear anything special — a white tee shirt under an old brown leather jacket and a pair of tight gray plaid pants with cuffs that bunched up over his black high tops. His black hair was long, almost down to his shoulders, and he had just a wisp of a beard on his chin.
Hector was only like a year or two older than Rosie and me, but he was pretty tall and solidly built. Plus, he had that whole Dropout thing that made him seem a lot older. Like his sister, he had a broad face, dimples in his cheeks, big brown eyes and a straight, chiseled nose.
He was good-looking and he knew it, too.
The dropouts came sauntering across the street right toward us. Normally, I would have gone the other way as fast as I could, but I was with his sister and of course, she wasn’t scared of him, so I had to stick around.
They stopped right in front of us, right on the corner. Hector grinned a big, white pearly-toothed grin and then — he winked at me. I mean, who does that? It was dumb — but I felt like I was blushing.
“Hey, Rosie,” he drawled and then flicked the hair out of his eyes. While he talked to Rosie, he never stopped looking at me. “Who’s your friend?”
“This is Nelly,” Rosie told him.
“She an ‘A’ student, like you?” he sneered.
“Get lost, Hector,” she said. “Come on Nelly.” She started to lead me right through the bunch of them like they were going to step aside for us.
“Hold on,” Hector said, stepping right in Rosie’s way and flashing the big grin again. He was still looking at me and I didn’t like it. “I want to get to know Nel-lee.” He twisted my name around his tongue. I didn’t like that, either.
“I said, get lost, Hector,” Rosie snapped and pushed him aside. He let her go by, then stepped right in my way. His pals closed around him, almost shoulder to shoulder.
“Where you going, Nel-lee?” he laughed. “Don’t you want to be friends? Don’t be scared, being a Dropout won’t rub off on you.”
“Leave her alone, Hector,” Rosie yelled. I couldn’t even see her. Hector put his face close to mine.
“I mean, it won’t rub off,” he murmured in a low voice. “Unless you want it to.”
His pals all laughed.
“Hector!” Rosie shouted again.
I braced myself to run, even though I knew I couldn’t get away from all of them. Then two things happened, one right after the other.
First, Hector reached out to put his hand on my shoulder.
Second, I kicked him in the face.
End of Chapter Two
Chapter Three will be published here in a few days, or you can “binge” on the entire book right now by buying it at Amazon, iTunes,Barnes & Noble, Kobo or Smashwords.