Conspiracies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,108

almost forty kids that she knew of who had “left” Oakhurst, including the kids who had been Tithed or driven crazy in the last two years. It was a staggering total of dead and just-as-good-as. She knew the kids who were left wanted desperately to believe the missing ones had really gone off somewhere; there was no point in trying to tell them otherwise.

More Breakthrough people came to replace the missing (dead) teachers. The new teachers meant a new round of discipline-tightening, more classes, even less free time, and more of Mark Rider’s security goons prowling the campus, giving people the hairy eyeball, trying to chase them back to their rooms when they weren’t in class. And that was where Mr. Rider made his big mistake.

Maybe he figured that kids would do what they were told. Maybe he figured they were so scared by now they’d agree to anything as long as they were safe. Spirit remembered her parents having long debates about that with their friends—how some people would put up with just about any restrictions as long as they thought they’d be safe.

The thing was … even if she didn’t like a lot of them, Spirit knew that none of the kids at Oakhurst were stupid. Smart people tended to ask questions, and tended to resent it when they had to give up privileges and freedoms. She remembered her mom saying, “Stupid people are satisfied with stuff. Smart people can make themselves stupid by being willing to settle for stuff. It’s all about what you’re willing to settle for.”

The kids didn’t say anything openly—some of them were afraid to, truth to tell—but there was a lot of grumbling when Breakthrough people weren’t there.

The Breakthrough people got wind of it, of course, and another e-mail went out reminding everyone that the dance was still on, and that “the goal of Breakthrough was to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, so relax and enjoy your evening.” As if one of the Oakhurst dances was going to make up for being shadowed by a goon when you just wanted to take a walk and be alone for a while. As if the soda and otherwise-forbidden snacks would make up for knowing the Breakthrough geeks were monitoring every single keystroke when you chatted.

Combine the sort of strict regime that the kids brought up like Addie weren’t used to and strongly resented with the tension of wondering when the next “incident” would happen, and you had a tightly wound bunch of kids who were just looking for an outlet for all that nervous energy. It didn’t take much in the way of a hint here, a suggestion there, to get the “prank” rolling.

By the night of the dance, everything was primed to explode.

* * *

“The best thing is,” Addie observed, as she twined Spirit’s hair into a loose French braid, “even if nothing happens, the prank will still go off, and Rider’s people will have a hundred ‘suspects’ to watch. None of whom will be us.”

“You don’t really think that’s likely, do you?” Spirit asked, staring into the mirror so she could look into Addie’s reflected eyes.

“No,” Addie admitted, and rubbed the back of her neck. “I can feel it. It’s like a thunderstorm on the horizon.”

This wasn’t a formal dance, like New Year’s, but Muirin had insisted they all wear something besides Oakhurst clothing, so Spirit had her new red sweater and a pair of black pants Muirin had whipped up out of some velour from the theater supplies, and Addie had a similar gray outfit she said was cashmere. Those outfits would have gotten really warm after a while at a normal dance, but none of them figured they would be in the gym long enough for it to matter.

As for dates, in the end, Spirit had asked Loch and Addie had asked Burke; Muirin went through with going with Dylan, “Because it would look weird if I backed out after I already asked him.” Not that who you asked made any difference in the end, because they were all herded out to the gym in a group under the watchful eye of the Breakthrough guards. Even the real couples were looking resentful. It was pretty hard to get romantic when you had an expressionless Security Goon carefully not-staring at you.

No one had really known how to decorate for a “Sadie Hawkins Day Dance,” so they’d done a sort of pre-Valentine’s Day generic pink background of balloons and