O n that particular day Tag was sitting two seats away from Leila and her best friend Tara, and he was enjoying the view. And what a view. Leila was wearing a bright yellow sundress with a matching ribbon that tied her hair in a ponytail. She was amazing. Tara was a very pretty girl, too, but in a different way from Leila. Tara had short red hair and green eyes and was tall. She was two inches taller than Tag and had a shape that most movie stars would die for. She was pretty, but not as gorgeous as Leila, at least not in his opinion. He relaxed in his seat and felt the warmth of the sun on his back and fantasized about going out with Leila. The city passed below and he felt relaxed and comfortable, looking out at the city and Leila, his two favorite pastimes. The public floater was only half full, and most of the riders were students going home after class. No one was saying much because they had taken the administrative placement test that day, which was required of all students the year before they graduated. The test had started early in the morning and lasted seven hours. Tag was tired, but never too tired to gaze at Leila. He noticed that something was different today. She was quiet and slumped over in her seat, which was not like her at all. Suddenly Leila started crying. Tara put her arm around Leila and started whispering. “What’s wrong with her?” Tag thought. He moved unseen to the seat behind them so he could hear what was going on.
“It’ll be all right, Leila,” Tara said. “With all of your other test scores the administrators will know just how smart you really are.”
“No, it won’t be okay.” Leila was holding her head in her hand and said, “This test is used to determine what job you’re best suited for, and I’ve failed miserably.”
“Leila, you’re wrong. You couldn’t have done that bad.”
The floater stopped and three students got off. Leila and Tara waited for them to pass, and then Leila said, “Yes, I did.” She sobbed, “Last night my parents had an argument, and my mother said she was leaving my father and ending their marriage. She has always had a much higher job and she resents that she has provided most of our family’s support.”
Tag ducked further down in his seat as Tara looked around to see if anyone had noticed Leila crying. Then Tara said, “They were just angry. They didn’t mean it, they’ll stay together. Your mother knows what will happen if she leaves. She could even lose that higher job.”
“No, I could tell she meant it. I came out of my room and told her that she just can’t do this! I told her that children from broken families were not allowed to marry because their genetics showed they were not suited to make that kind of commitment. I cried, yelled, and begged her not to do it.”
“What did she say?”
“She said she had made her decision and though she knew that it would cause pain, she was not going to change her mind.”
“Oh Leila, I’m so sorry.”
“My father and I argued with her all night until she finally agreed not to leave until after I was married. She told me that she won’t wait forever for that to happen. That’s the good news. The bad news is that when I took the test this morning I was emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausted. The last half of the test I just marked answers at random because I was so far behind. There’s a chance I can get married, but I probably won’t get a job that will support my family. Without a good paying job, my choices for a spouse will be greatly limited. I’ll be like some poor people that have turned to crime to support themselves.”
“Leila, you’re just being dramatic now,” Tara said, and she tightened her arm around Lelia’s shoulders.
Tag listened to them and felt something inside him break. He would do anything to take away her sorrow, but he was powerless. Oh, how he wished he could hold and comfort her. He couldn’t think of anything that could be done to help her. Then Tara said something that told him how he could do it.
“Leila, let’s pray that they lose your test before it’s graded,” Tara said. “Sometimes miracles do happen.”
“Tara, you’re a great friend, but you know as well as I that will never happen, but I’ll still pray with you. Pray that after they grade this test they won’t accuse me of having cheated on all the others.”
Tag moved out of the seat without being seen. He walked to the front of the floater and waited for the next stop. What Tara had said started him thinking. If Leila’s test were to disappear before they graded it, then she would have to retake it when she wouldn’t be so worn out. He had to find a way to make that happen. Time was short, he realized; grading would probably start that night. Their test administrator was very efficient and usually had results available the day after they took a test. He had to do something now. When the floater made its next stop he used his gift and got off without anyone seeing him go. He called home and left a message. “Mom, I’m going to spend the night with Eric. We took our placement test today and we want to talk about it. I’ll be home tomorrow after school. I love you.” He didn’t worry that she would call to check, because she had never checked on him before and she trusted him. It hurt him to know that he was going to betray that trust by trying to steal Leila’s test, and he knew in his heart that in order to make that happen he was going to have to use the very gifts he promised her he wouldn’t. He wasn’t certain how he was going to do it, but he knew he had to try. One thing he did know, he could not use public transportation to go back to his school. Stealing the test was only half the battle; the other half was not getting caught doing it. In order to ride public transportation you had to place your transport card in the payment slot. If in the future someone suspected that Leila’s test was taken, the first place they would look would be public transportation records to see who used it at the time of the theft. Getting on a public floater without being seen was impossible, because you could not board without your weight triggering the payment computer. So he knew he had to walk back to school and avoid being seen by anyone or any cameras. He had four miles to cover, and all of it had to be done on surface streets, which after dark were dangerous places to be. He started walking and noticed the city around him felt like it had a life of its own. The towering buildings, the floaters flying overhead, the parks that lined the streets, and the people going about their business all caught his attention and brightened the sadness he was feeling-a little. He was avoiding the cameras without really thinking about it. He just moved into the shadows he sensed and continued to walk and watch human existence unfold around him. He noticed the patterns of shadows in front and to the sides of him that showed him where to go to avoid being seen. Sometimes he had to move along a wall, stop, and then duck and run until his sense told him to move in another direction. He used vehicles, moving floaters, and other people to screen him from all the electronic surveillance along his route. He always looked down or away whenever people looked at him so that no one would see his face. He slouched to look shorter than he was. All these things he did with no conscious effort. Staying hidden came as natural to him as swimming did to a fish. Finally he arrived in front of the school. The one-story building loomed in front of him and beckoned to him. He saw that there were still numerous people in and around the school. That was going to make it difficult to avoid being seen.
“Now the real fun begins,” he thought. “At least it’s getting dark, and that should help.” He looked at the school and could see the psychic shadows that he could move in without being seen. The problem was that they were changing rapidly because so many people were still there. Also, a shadow where no one was looking would disappear as soon as someone in the building casually glanced outside. He had never seen the shadow patterns shift so rapidly. He stood next to a tree on the edge of the school property looking across the two-hundred-yard expanse of grass and trees that fronted the school. The trees were scattered and didn’t offer much in the way of concealment. He decided his only chance was to start running, using the shadow patterns as much as possible. Tag hoped that if someone saw him he could jump into another shadow and they would lose sight of him. He had never taken this kind of risk before, but he couldn’t think of another plan.
He began running towards the faculty entrance. There were about two hundred yards to cross, and he was moving fast. He dodged left, then right, going from shadow to shadow, sometimes having to jump because the shadow was three feet off the ground, and then roll because the shadow was only two feet high, but he managed to stay in the psychic shadows all the way up to the shrubbery next to the faculty entrance. Then he waited and caught his breath. He looked back at the ground he had just covered and saw all the psychic shadows were still moving with very little predictability. Somehow he knew that if he had moved slowly from shadow to shadow he would’ve been seen. This was a lesson he would not forget. Time passed and, without thinking, Tag moved back and forth behind the shrubs whenever the psychic shadows moved. He thought about Leila and her problems at home and was thankful that his parents loved each other so much. He knew he would be devastated if his parents divorced. He sat down and watched the psychic shadows go from moving quickly, then slowing down, and finally stopping and covering all the ground around the school as the day ended and it began to get dark. By now most of the people had left. “My shoulders hurt. This wall needs more soft spots,” he thought, and then he stood up and peered through the shrubbery. He could see the walkway as it wound from the door to the street. So far, there was no sign of Mr. Graham, the test administrator. He looked down and saw the gravel in the flower bed at his feet. He bent down and picked up several of the larger stones and put them in his pocket. He watched the door and thought about how he could possibly get Leila’s test. He felt certain the test administrator would come this evening to process the tests and scan them into the computer.
“You would think,” Tag thought as he sat back down and leaned against the hard wall, “that they would just give the test in the computer instead of using old-fashioned paper and pencil.” But it had been decided centuries ago that if something happened to the human race, the survivors would need to know how to read and write without the use of a computer. In light of humankind’s recent skirmishes with the Cainth, and the real possibility of an attack on Earth, this decision made more sense now than ever. All students also had to learn Alliance as a second language. All races used standard Alliance to communicate, and the tests were actually written in the official Alliance language. English measurements such as a second corresponded to a sem in Alliance; a minute was a dreg; an hour was a drag; a day was a rotation; and a year was a cycle. A distance such as a foot was a deg; a mile was a seg; and so on, until sometimes the languages were used interchangeably. However, the scoring was done by computer. Tag knew that he had to get the test before Mr. Graham started inputting them. “It’s getting dark,” he thought. “It’s time for you to show up, Mr. Graham.”
Time seemed to drag, and Tag began to worry that the tests wouldn’t be graded tonight. “Finally,” Tag thought as he saw Mr. Graham getting out of his floater. He was walking slowly from the street to the faculty entrance and fortunately the entire area was covered in psychic shadows, so Tag knew no one was watching. The only place there were no shadows was directly in front of Mr. Graham. Tag waited until Mr. Graham was even with him and slipped out of the shrubbery and, just like in his first game of hide-and-seek, moved behind Mr. Graham. He knew he would have to stay low because the entry camera would flash as soon as Mr. Graham entered the door.
Bert Graham had been a test administrator for thirty-two years and, quite frankly, found no enjoyment in his work. “I guess that’s why they call it work,” he thought. He took out his keys and unlocked the faculty door; he entered and looked up at the camera as it flashed, and then he locked the door behind him. Tag stayed concealed behind him in the psychic shadow, which told him the camera had not seen him.
Bert started walking down the hall to his office and looked at the pictures hanging on the school wall. He always smiled as he passed the picture of William Clinton. The guy just had funny looking hair. As he opened his office he thought about the work he had to do. The process was simple. He would take each student’s test booklet and scan the code from the top left corner into the computer; then he would feed the student’s answer sheets into the receiving slot. The reason for the test booklet being scanned was that every student had a different test. Copying someone else’s paper would never help because no two students had the same questions on the same page. Subsequently, the answer sheets only made sense when matched to the appropriate test booklet. He sat down in his chair, opened the safe, and took out the tests. “Might as well begin,” Mr. Graham thought and began processing the tests.
Standing quietly behind Mr. Graham, Tag looked at the stack of papers on the desk. He knew that he had to make his move when Leila’s test was on top of the stack. He took one of the pebbles out of his pocket and stood behind Mr. Graham. He waited patiently as the stack grew smaller. Finally, there it was: Leila Barber. Her folder was the next one to be processed. He had decided that the safest thing to do would be to take the test booklet and leave the answer sheets. He figured that if he took the answer sheets they could accuse her of not taking the test. This way, without the test booklet, her answer sheets would make no sense, especially since more than half of the test involved marking A, B, C, or D as the answer to a question. He threw the smallest pebble at the glass on the classroom door. He closely watched the papers to see if a psychic shadow would cover them and he could take Leila’s booklet without being seen. Suddenly there it was. A psychic shadow covered the desk and he reached around and grabbed the folder, took the test booklet out, and put the folder back down before the shadow disappeared.
“What’s that noise?” Mr. Graham thought. He looked over at the door and saw nothing out of the ordinary, but he distinctly heard a small ping. He turned his chair toward the door and started to get up but decided it was nothing and turned back to continue his work. He picked up the next folder, and then heard a louder ping at the door. “Now that’s odd,” he thought. He got up and walked to the door, opened it, stepped into the hall, and looked around. To the left, the hallway was empty, with all the classroom doors closed; the hallway was also empty to the right. He listened intently for a few moments and then thought, “Nothing.” He scratched his head and went back inside to finish his work.
Tag had thrown another pebble at the door as soon as he had the test booklet. As he had hoped, Mr. Graham went to the door and opened it, with Tag following along behind him. When Mr. Graham stepped back into the room, Tag remained in the hall. He spent the next thirty minutes working his way back to the faculty entrance, avoiding all the moving cameras in the hall. He waited in a shadow beside the door, hoping that it wouldn’t be long before someone showed up. He was pretty certain that someone was coming and that the groad was about to hit the reactor. He sat and passed time by looking at the pictures on the wall and wondered just who this Bill Clinton was that his school was named for. He looked at the pictures of the school namesake and thought, “He sure had funny looking hair. He also didn’t look good in the prisoner of war uniform the Chinese made him wear after the third world war. He must have escaped and become famous or something to have this school named after him.” Then he thought that it sure was quiet in there at night. Even the climate system could be heard going on and off. You couldn’t hear it during the day. “Come on, Mr. Graham. Call somebody; I’ve got to get out of here,” he silently plead.
Mr. Graham was looking at Leila Barber’s test folder. All the answer sheets were there but the test booklet was missing. He checked the log of the two assistant administrators who had collected the test materials and saw Leila’s thumbprint inside the booklet and answer sheet boxes, showing that she had turned both in. This was highly irregular and he could not think of any way that the test booklet could be missing. When the test ended, two administrators were present to verify that all materials were collected properly. The materials were then placed in a security lockbox, brought to his office, and dropped through the top into his safe. There was a one-way force field on his safe where things could go in but nothing could be taken out. He turned on his communicator and called the two assistant administrators that had handled the test materials. They insisted that all the materials were collected properly. He requested that they come to his office immediately. From Mr. Graham’s voice they knew something was wrong, and they immediately left for the school. Mr. Graham also called Edward Garcia, who was his contact at the Education Security Division. After explaining what he found, Sergeant Garcia said he would be right over. “Something’s wrong,” Sergeant Garcia thought. “This sort of thing just doesn’t happen.”
Tag waited at the door for the people that he knew Mr. Graham would call. “Shoot, they call people in if students have an argument,” he realized. He was pretty certain this would qualify as much more than an argument. So he waited patiently, watching Bill Clinton’s picture watch him. “Maybe his hair wasn’t so stupid looking. It could grow on you,” he thought. He chuckled at that. “Grow on you,” he snickered.
He didn’t have long to wait. All at once he noticed that all the psychic shadows around the door had disappeared. There were three people at the door and someone was unlocking it, and he knew he would be seen if he didn’t move. He decided to take a chance. He took a large pebble out of his pocket and watched the people as the door was unlocked and they all entered. The door opened inward and Tag crouched behind it. The first two men almost ran straight through without looking to either side, so he knew that it was the third man who would be looking around. Just as Sergeant Garcia entered the door, Tag threw his pebble at a set of lockers on the other side of the hallway. Two things happened at once: Sergeant Garcia heard the noise and looked down the hall at the lockers, and Tag was immediately surrounded by a psychic shadow. He used that moment to slip out the door before Sergeant Garcia looked around.
“Now that’s strange,” Sergeant Garcia thought. He looked around and then moved down towards the lockers. He noticed a small stone at the base of the first one. “One of the two assistant administrators must have kicked it when they came through the door,” he surmised. He stood up to go back and lock the door and then looked carefully around the hallway. He could see nothing out of the ordinary, but before he went in to Mr. Graham’s office he did a thorough search of the building. He also checked all the camera records to see if they had recorded anyone else in the building. Once he satisfied himself that no one else was there he went to see Mr. Graham. He found Mr. Graham and his two assistants heatedly discussing the missing test booklet. He took a seat in a student’s desk and listened in. He glanced up at the pictures on the wall and thought, “Boy, the guy this school is named for sure looks freaky with that weird hair.”
“You couldn’t have collected it or it would be in the folder,” Mr. Graham said.
“Sir, we were very careful about that. I took the test booklet from each student, placed it in a folder, took the student’s thumbprint in the appropriate square, then handed the folder to my associate here who did the same thing with the answer sheets. He wouldn’t have put the answer sheets in the folder if the test booklet was not in the folder first.”
“I agree with Adam,” the second assistant said. “That is exactly what we did, except that after getting the thumbprint for the test materials, I placed them in the lockbox until all of them were collected, then closed it and locked it. We both then walked the lockbox to your office and placed it in your safe.”
“Well it’s not here!” shouted Mr. Graham. “What do you two think happened to it?”
The assistant administrators looked at each other, and one said, “I don’t know.”
Sergeant Garcia interrupted and said, “It’s obvious that something happened, and either someone in this room is being less than honest or someone outside this room did something to cause this. I want the three of you to be available in the morning to meet with the chief investigator to go over your stories. I also want the student whose test booklet is missing to be made available to determine what they remember about turning in their test materials. I have to tell you that this may seem like something small, but we will get to the bottom of what happened. This is not something that security will take lightly. These placement tests are the backbone of our structure in placing the right person in the right position. If someone has tampered with the system, we will find out.”
Mr. Graham and the two assistants looked at each other and knew that tomorrow morning they would probably be questioned in a truth field. It was not going to be a pleasant day. They knew that the three of them were the most likely suspects and that the investigators would keep digging, even if they were truthful in their denials. Sergeant Garcia said to the two assistant test administrators, “The two of you go home and get some rest. We’ll discuss this in the morning.”
Mr. Graham completed entering the tests for the remaining students while Sergeant Garcia watched. “Bert, why don’t you go home and get some rest,” Sergeant Garcia said. “I believe you when you say that you had nothing to do with this. After all, you’re the one that reported it. I also sense that those two assistants are also being honest, so that means something impossible happened here. The department of security may let little things slide, but not impossible ones. This could get messy. Advanced placement tests are taken very seriously, and this irregularity must be investigated.”
Mr. Graham nodded and remembered how bored he was with his job when he started that evening. Well, he certainly was not going to be bored now. He even wished for that boredom to return. What he suspected was that he would not make thirty-three years as a test administrator if, as Sergeant Garcia suspected, this was going to be a mess.