All Good Children - Catherine Austen [30]
Mr. Ames snorts so hard his glasses fall off.
“It’s true!” I shout. “We know that if we fall below seventy we’ll be sent to the school for throwaways.”
“Trade school,” Mr. Ames corrects.
“Trade. Royal. The trade of dismantling old technology and recycling its parts.”
“What’s your point, Maxwell?” Mr. Ames sighs.
“My point is that none of us is stupid and no one lets school slide. You might think we mess around, some of us, but not one student here works less than two hours a night.”
“Two out of how many?” Mr. Ames asks. “Seven? Eight? Is that really so much homework?”
“Are you serious?” I ask.
He smiles. “Let’s take another look at the Big Bad Wolf.”
“There aren’t any wolves anymore,” I mutter.
Dallas leans over and whispers, “Who do you think would win in a fight? Red Riding Hood or Grandma?”
In history we compare the recent Venezuelan flu to the Black Plague in the 1300s.
“Both were times of increasing social control,” Mr. Reese says.
Xavier gushes at the magic words social control. He leans into the aisle and leads us all astray with a comparison of our national government and the medieval papacy, neither of which had anything to do with health care. Mr. Reese is kind and neurotic—he gives Xavier a long leash.
Brennan reaches the end of his own rope. “I understand what you’re saying, Xavier, but in the modern world, social control is necessary. It’s too easy for insane people to unleash disaster on the rest of us.”
“Don’t tell me the Venezuelan flu was spread by terrorists,” Montgomery says with a sigh. “I am so tired of that theory.”
Brennan lowers his eyes. “We know the California nuclear disaster was a terrorist move. What if something like that happened in a city? We have millions of environmental refugees from drought and rising sea levels. We can’t add to that burden with industrial sabotage and terrorism.”
“We should have closed our borders years ago,” Washington says.
“No. It’s immigration that keeps our economy strong,” Xavier says. “Our openness is what made us great.”
“The point is,” Brennan says, “our technology has become too lethal to allow the same freedoms we used to have. Look at what happened to Freaktown, and that was just an accident.”
“That was the Canadians,” Washington says.
“It was our own industry,” Xavier argues.
“It was an accident that our enemies want repeated,”
Brennan says. “We have to limit civil liberties for our own safety.”
“We have to limit corporate liberties for our safety,” Xavier argues.
“What liberties are you talking about, Brennan?” Dallas asks. “We’re under surveillance on every street of this city and every room of this school.”
“We need that in the rest of the country,” Brennan says.
“At least they’re getting universal ids,” Montgomery says. “That’s step one.”
“They’ll never implement that,” I say. “The southwest signed on to get their water supply back, but they’ll never enforce it. Texas barely has zoning laws.”
Dallas laughs and says, “That’s where I’m moving.”
“Should there be places with no surveillance?” Mr. Reese asks.
Xavier shouts, “Yes!” and Brennan shouts, “No!”
“Ask Connors,” Tyler says. “He knows all the places with no surveillance.”
I smile. “I like knowing that someone is keeping an eye on other people, but when they start monitoring my every move, it could be a problem.”
“Who are they?” Mr. Reese asks.
“Chemrose,” Tyler says. “And the government, the cops, the school, you.”
Mr. Reese gasps. “Me?”
Tyler leans back in his chair, bites his yellow fingernails, bitterly surveys the class. He points at Brennan. “So are you. Quarterback. Ultimate. President of This and That. Of course you want more control.” He points at Dallas. “Your daddy runs the school board, doesn’t he?” He turns to me. “You’d like to be one of them, wouldn’t you, Connors? But you just don’t fit in.”
“We’re all them,” Pepper says. “You too, Tyler. Compared to the rest of the world. Even compared to the rest of the country. Look at us. We have everything.”
“Just because we’re privileged doesn’t mean we control anyone,”