How to Lead a Life of Crime

chapter THIRTY



THE NO-STAR TEAM





We started out with a perfectly good plan. Joi would request permission to leave the academy to visit the Police Museum for a look at its Fredericka “Marm” Mandelbaum archive. As soon as she got there, she would deposit her chip somewhere inside the museum and take a cab up to Charles Street. Then she’d break into the painter’s studio through the roof. If the files were in the apartment, she’d fill her backpack, pick up her chip from the museum, and return to school. Then we’d find a way to put the files to good use. It wasn’t a foolproof plan, but at least it felt simple. Easy. But it was doomed from the start.

Joi’s first request to leave the academy was denied. Mandel didn’t deign to give her an explanation. Her second request met a similar fate. I figured my drunken performance at the alumni gathering must have been less than convincing. Then I discovered the truth in the men’s locker room.

I was changing out of my gym clothes after Brazilian Jujitsu when I plopped down on the bench to tie my shoes and nearly landed on Gwendolyn’s lap.

“What the . . .” I don’t know what was more shocking—finding her there or seeing her up close for the first time in weeks. Her hair appeared to be thinning, and her face was covered with scabs and raw sores.

“Enjoy your little sleepover?” she hissed. When she reached up to scratch at a scab, I knew the wounds had been made by her own fingernails.

“Excuse me?” I glanced around the locker room. The last of my jujitsu classmates was heading for the door. I almost called out and asked him to stay.

“I saw the witch sneaking out of your room the other morning. Did she do any of the stuff I told her you like?”

“You’re sick,” I said, turning my attention back to my shoelaces.

“I’d love to know how she managed to fool her chip. Mr. Mandel checked the tracking data. He still thinks Joi was in her room that night. But I know what I saw.”

“No, you don’t,” I assure Gwendolyn. “You were hallucinating. Those pills are eating your brain. You need to stop taking them.”

“I told Mr. Mandel to keep his eyes open. I told him you and the witch are together again.”

“Oh yeah?” I tried my best to sound uninterested. “And what did he say?”

“He said Joi’s the Dux. She can sleep with whoever she likes.”

“Then I guess that’s it. Sorry to hear you wasted your time.” I finished the last knot on my laces and stood up. When I looked down at Gwendolyn, she was smiling. Her gums were bleeding, and the sight was gruesome.

“You haven’t let me finish. Joi can do whatever she likes. But the same rules don’t apply to losers like you. I’m not sure what you did to upset him, but the headmaster isn’t your biggest fan anymore. If I were you, I’d watch my back. And I’d definitely stop screwing the witch.”

“Is that what this is all about? You’re jealous because you think I’m with Joi?” I grabbed my belongings and slammed my locker. “That’s almost touching, Gwendolyn. I had no idea you really cared.”

• • •

That afternoon, I dragged Joi up to the roof during lunch. Whether or not he believed Gwendolyn, Mandel was going to be watching us both for a while. Leaving school was out of the question. I was totally prepared to start all over from scratch—and find a way to destroy the academy without using the files. Joi thought coming up with a completely new plan would take too much time. A fresh batch of recruits would soon be moving into the Suites downstairs. The culling upstairs had already been postponed for almost a month. Mandel wouldn’t be willing to wait much longer.

“I’ll just ask Curly to get the files,” she announced.

I could only hope she was joking. “Please tell me you know someone else named Curly. ’Cause if you’re talking about the cocker-spaniel-looking kid I know, I’ll just go ahead and jump off this roof right now and save Mandel the trouble of killing me.”

“I know why you think Curly can’t do it,” Joi replied. “And that’s exactly why I think he can. He’s young and cute. Even if everyone on Charles Street saw him breaking into the building, no one would ever suspect he’s a thief.”

“Fine. But how would you get word to him?” I asked, still praying I could put an end to the idea.

“I’ll send a message to Tina’s Facebook page.”

“Tina’s got a Facebook page?” I sputtered. “She doesn’t even have a computer!”

“They let her use the one where she works.” I could see Joi’s expression growing dark.

“Works?” Since when do hookers get computer time?

It was almost as if she’d read my thoughts. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Flick. Tina’s been a nanny for almost a year now. She used to work nights for a family with twins, but she took a daytime gig after I asked her to look out for the colony kids.”

“Tina’s a nanny? And you left her in charge of the colony? The girl who buys everyone booze?”

“That was one time, Flick. On Christmas Eve. And it wasn’t booze. It was beer.” Joi was getting seriously pissed.

“Okay, okay,” I said, backing off. “But how do we send Tina a message if neither one of us has Internet access?”

“We’ll ask that girl Lily to help.”

“Lily?” It took me a minute to put a face to the name. “You mean the Android who told us she has the Facebook source code?”

“There was a reason I got to know everyone here, Flick. I wasn’t just being friendly. I figured I’d need help at some point. And you wouldn’t believe what some of the students can do.”

“Just because Lily says she can hack Facebook doesn’t mean that she can! She’s number thirty-something, remember?!”

“You know what I don’t understand, Flick? Why you’d just assume that Curly, Tina, and Lily are worthless. I can’t remember ever seeing you speak to any of them for more than ten seconds. So how the hell do you know what they can or can’t do?”

“I don’t think they’re worthless.” It wasn’t a lie. I wouldn’t have used the word worthless. I would have used the word weak. But I wasn’t interested in hearing another of Joi’s lectures. “I just don’t want to get too many people involved.”

“Yeah, for a while you didn’t even want me involved. Why do you want to do everything yourself, Flick? Is it because you think you’re the only one who can do it right?”

No, I wanted to tell her. It’s because most people who’ve helped me have ended up beaten, fired, or worse. I’ve had to live knowing that Jude died trying to save me—and that I wasn’t worth his sacrifice. If I’d only refused my brother’s help, he and my mother wouldn’t be dead.

I can’t be responsible for any more deaths. And I won’t beg favors from a bunch of kids who are already struggling just to stay alive.

“Look, Joi,” I said, trying one last angle. “I’m willing to take your word about Curly and Tina. You know them both better than I do. But we can’t go around asking other students for help.”

“Why not? If it weren’t for the kids in my Incubation Group, I couldn’t have made it upstairs. Max would have butchered us all if we hadn’t protected each other.”

“That was down in the Suites! You’ve seen for yourself what happens to students once they’re sent upstairs! One way or another, the academy turns them into sociopaths. If they don’t change, they die. It doesn’t make any difference how many times you’ve interviewed them. We still have no idea which Androids we can trust—so we can’t trust anyone. Monsters exist, and this school is full of them.”

“The only monster here is the one who’s in charge. There may be a handful of students who are criminally insane, but the rest are just regular kids who’ve lost all hope.”

“Are you willing to bet your life on that?”

“Yep,” Joi said. “Yours too.”

• • •

And that’s how we ended up with a no-star team of Ghosts, Androids, and Urchins. I don’t like it one little bit. Each and every one of them is a potential weak link. To make matters worse, Gwendolyn is watching, and Caleb appears to be shadowing us too. I don’t know if he’s still scheming to seize the Dux title—or whether Mandel put him up to it. But Joi and I haven’t been able to return to the roof. Whenever we visit the lounge, Caleb is always lurking nearby. So we’ve been forced to polish our plot one secret note at a time. I’ve eaten so much paper in the last week that there must be a whole tree lodged in my lower intestine. Today it feels like a full-grown conifer.

It’s Friday, July the third. Our operation kicked off quietly four days ago. We’ve had no confirmation that the first two stages of the plan have met with any success. On Monday, while an instructor watched her every move, Lily attacked Facebook with a virus—a virus with one rather unusual feature. Thousands of users downloaded a piece of spyware designed to collect all their passwords. But Tina received a message.

Joi is convinced that Tina picked up our note. But the next step of the plan was always the one that worried me most. I spent an entire evening crafting detailed instructions for Curly—how to get up to the roof, how to crack any locks, and how to get out without being caught. Joi provided a list of alumni whose files might contain high-value data. If Curly managed to locate the files, he should have placed them inside a black bag. That black bag was supposed to be put inside a white file box—and delivered to the academy today at exactly 11:15 a.m.

There are too many goddamned ifs. We don’t know if our instructions were received. We don’t even know for certain if the files exist. And if Curly gets nabbed stealing academy secrets, Mandel won’t have any trouble tracing him right back to the colony. And then we’ll all be dead.

I’m glad I skipped breakfast. If I hadn’t, there might be a puddle of liquefied bacon on the floor of the Hidden Treasures classroom. Joi is six seats away from me. She looks like she’s actually enjoying the Exxon-sponsored documentary on natural gas drilling that our own Ms. Smith appears to have narrated. Joi’s head tilts back, and I watch her sniff the air. I smell it too, an acrid chemical odor. The television screen goes black, and the monitor disappears into the ceiling. Ms. Smith grabs the remote control and clicks the power button several times in frustration. She’s about to check the batteries when alarms begin to wail outside.

I don’t hear the phone on Ms. Smith’s desk start to vibrate, but I see her pick it up and scan the screen.

“Nothing to worry about!” she shouts over the alarm. “There’s no fire in the building—just a smoke condition on the second floor.”

Joi catches my eye. The next stage of our plan has been set into motion. Three stories below us, a chipmunk is causing a commotion in a chemistry lab. In Violet’s two months as a leisure studies major, she’s shown zero interest in manufacturing street drugs. But Joi claims the girl has a talent for chemistry. I had my doubts, but I thought starting a lab fire might not prove too taxing. Then Violet decided to improve my idea. She said she could put together a combination of chemicals that would react with moisture in the air to produce a thick fog. We’d still need smoke to set off the sprinklers, but the fog would linger long after the fire was extinguished. I thought it sounded too complicated, but I was outvoted. Until this very moment, I was sure Violet would turn out to be the weakest link of them all. But it looks like she’s held up just fine.

The alarms grow louder when Ms. Smith opens the classroom door and steps onto the balcony. The entire class streams out behind her.

The smoke has activated the sprinkler system on the bottom three floors of the building. Those students lucky enough to have classes on floors four and five are leaning over the balconies, cackling as their classmates downstairs get drenched. The atrium is like the eye of a hurricane—calm and dry. The Mandel Academy’s flaming brass balls twinkle in the sunlight.

“Get in the elevator!” Mr. Martin’s voice booms from below.

Ella has his Secrets and Sabotage class this period, and she must have delivered the line I gave her. Are there sprinklers in your office, sir? That was my single contribution to this craptastic plan. All those boxes lining the walls in Mr. Martin’s office must be filling with water. Just as I expected, he’s herding his class to the ground floor in a last-ditch attempt to keep all his dirt from turning to mud. A dense, white fog from the chemistry lab is now cascading over the second-floor balcony. I watch as dozens of file boxes are carted out of Mr. Martin’s office while the atrium fills with smoke. We hear fire engines approaching, and the front doors of the school swing open. Hopefully an intruder has slipped in with the firemen. A colony kid carting a file box. The last thing Joi and I need are fifty academy students keeping watch.

“Okay, everyone,” Joi shouts at the students hanging over the balconies. “If you’re not in Mr. Martin’s class, get to your rooms! Use the elevator on the right. Send the other one downstairs in case the firemen need it.”

I don’t want to miss any action, but there’s not much to see anymore. The cloud has blanketed the entire ground floor. And I have my own part to play. Joi and I make sure all the students are on their way to their rooms. Then she slips me her chip, and I ride the elevator to the ninth floor. Joi gets off on the eighth to wait for Ella.

I take the chip to the tower lounge and tuck it between the pages of a book someone has abandoned on the coffee table. Then I rush back down to the balcony. The elevator that delivered me upstairs has been called to the ground floor, and I watch as it’s swallowed up by the fog. A box may (or may not) have arrived during the pandemonium. Ella may (or may not) have located it. She may (or may not) have taken the black bag inside and switched it with the one she carried to class. She may (or may not) be on her way to give it to Joi.

Both elevators suddenly break through the smoke and climb toward the upper floors. One is crammed with Mr. Martin’s sopping-wet students. It stops on the seventh floor, then the eighth. I don’t know if Ella gets off, because I’m watching the other one now. The only person inside is Lucian Mandel. The elevator lands on nine, and he begins walking straight toward me. But I don’t think I’m the person he’s looking for. I see his hand make a move for the pocket on the right side of his suit jacket.

“Good thing it’s just smoke,” I say, blocking his path. His hand returns to his side. “Looks like your granddad forgot a little something called fire escapes when he built this place. If there was ever a fire, we’d all get roasted alive.”

“Shouldn’t you be in your room?” Mandel snaps.

“And miss the excitement? What happened down on the second floor?”

Mandel is not in the mood for chitchat. “Something that should have been avoided. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must speak with the Dux.”

We do a little dance as he tries to step around me. This is my fault. I should have made Joi keep her chip. But she insisted on being invisible. If Ella couldn’t find the box that the colony kids were supposed to deliver, Joi wanted to be able to search for herself. I should have volunteered for the job. If Gwendolyn was right and I’ve fallen out of favor, I’m probably already dead in Mandel’s eyes. When he finally manages to brush past me, my fingers dip into his suit jacket and emerge with his card key pinched between them. Then I start to walk away.

“Flick!” he shouts at my back.

I turn to see Mandel patting the pockets of his suit. “Yes?” Shit. I’m out of practice. He knows I just took it.

“I must have left my key downstairs. Open the door for me.”

“Why? If you’re looking for Joi, she’s not in the lounge,” I say.

“Her chip says she is,” Mandel tells me. “And I trust it far more than I’ll ever trust you.”

The second elevator has started climbing toward the ninth floor. I use my own key to unlock the lounge door just as the elevator lands on nine and Joi steps off. There are fifteen stairs that lead to the tower, and if Mandel beats Joi upstairs, she’ll have her own drawer in the morgue before the smoke has cleared. He’ll know she removed her chip, and after that, everything else will be obvious.

Mandel is already halfway up the stairs. “There’s something I need to tell you,” I call up to him. “It’s about Joi.”

“Then come with me,” Mandel replies without looking back. “Whatever it is, Joi can hear it too.”

I leave Mandel’s key behind on the balcony and pray that Joi understands the message.

• • •

The Wolves’ Den is empty. Mandel takes a spin in the center of the room, as though Joi might be hiding behind a chair or under the sofa. When he comes to a stop, there’s no smile on his face. The headmaster knows he’s been duped, but he still can’t believe it.

“Where is she?” he demands. “Where is she?!”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Joi’s not here.”

“The signal from her chip says she’s in the lounge.”

Play for time. Play for time.

“Well, I’ve been standing on the ninth-floor balcony since she ordered us all back to our rooms. I never saw her come up to the lounge. Joi’s behind all of this. I don’t know what she’s doing, but I think you should be very concerned.”

“Do you think she’s tried to escape?” Mandel asks.

“Your guess is as good as mine, but if I were you, I’d start searching the whole building.”

He almost looks ready to take my advice when a window opens and Joi casually enters the lounge. She found the card key and went through Mandel’s office to the roof.

“What’s going on?” she asks.

“And here’s our Dux now!” Mandel sounds as relieved as I feel. “Flick was just trying to convince me that you orchestrated this afternoon’s entertainment. He suggested I form a search party to find you.”

“Nice try,” Joi snarls at me. “I passed Flick on my way to the roof. He knew exactly where I was this whole time.”

Mandel’s smile returns. “And what, pray tell, were you doing outside?”

“Making plans,” Joi replies.

“Escape plans?”

“Battle plans,” Joi corrects him. “I’ve waited long enough. It’s time for the culling to start.”

“That’s precisely why I wanted to speak with you.” Mandel turns to me. “You may leave,” he tells me.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like Flick to hear what I have to say,” Joi interjects. “He’s going to play a very big part in my plan.”

The headmaster won’t even look at me. “I’ll allow him to remain in the room, but consider it my last favor,” Mandel cautions her. “I think we’d all agree that I’ve been very indulgent, Joi. I’ve tolerated your whims. I even let you postpone the culling while you finished your ‘analysis.’ But I’m afraid I must now intervene. The disturbance downstairs was caused by a student who no longer has any business being here at the academy.”

“Which one?” Joi asks.

“Violet. Number fifty-five.”

“Then she’ll be the second to go,” Joi announces. “Gwendolyn will be first.”

“When?” Mandel demands.

“Monday,” Joi says. “Right after the holiday.”

“No. Caleb should begin making plans immediately,” Mandel orders. “I don’t see any need to wait another three days.”

“Oh, but I do,” Joi assures him. “I want to give Flick plenty of time to think about how he’ll kill his little girlfriend.”

Mandel laughs. “Flick?”

“You want me to take Gwendolyn out?” My shock sounds genuine because it is. As much as I respect Joi, I’m more than a little concerned. This was definitely not part of our plan.

“Yes. While the whole school watches,” Joi says. “I know you probably haven’t staged a public execution before, Mr. Mandel. It’s less upsetting for the low-ranking students if the Ghosts just disappear. But Gwendolyn is a former Dux. Everyone knows that she tried to dispose of me. And I want them to see how I deal with my enemies. And I want Flick to wish that he’d kept his pants zipped.”

Mandel almost swoons with delight. He’s fallen in love with his latest monster. “You have a true gift, my dear,” he tells her.

“Thank you,” Joi says. “So if I have your approval, I’ll announce my plans to the top students during the fireworks.”

“Fireworks?” Mandel asks.

“Tomorrow night is the Fourth of July. The view from the roof will be perfect.”

Mandel doesn’t seem fond of the idea. “Roof privileges are reserved for the Dux,” he says.

“As they should be. But I’d like to give the other students a treat. It’s my way of showing them how much power I have—and what I’m able to do with it. I’ll announce Gwendolyn’s fate while the sky lights up over Manhattan. It will be an evening the top twelve will never forget.”

“I told you there wouldn’t be any more favors, Joi, and this is a very unusual request.”

“It seems unusual because I’m not like any Dux this school’s ever had,” Joi counters. “I know something the others didn’t. If all you can do is make people scared of you, you’ll always have to watch your back. The most successful leaders inspire more than fear in their subjects. They inspire awe.”

“And you believe you know how?” Mandel asks. Joi nods, and he’s hooked. I didn’t think there was any bait that would make Mandel bite. But Joi figured out what our headmaster wants. Mandel knows he rules his little empire by fear. He knows half the graduates think he’s nuts. Without the files, he’d be nothing. What he craves more than anything is the alumni’s respect.

“Then perhaps I should join you,” Mandel says. “I do enjoy a spectacle.”

“You’re welcome to come,” Joi tells him. “But your presence wouldn’t do either of us any good. I know how the top students think. I know how the alumni think. The more time you spend with them, the more human you seem. Let me act as your emissary, and we can make them all believe you’re a god.”