Secrets Are For Keeping

Chapter Twenty-Two

I didn't understand what I was seeing when I entered into E890.

The classroom was the largest out of all of the ones on the upper floor, and easily held every student and inspector in the school with even breathing room for everyone. One of the weirder aspects of the situation was that there were no teachers. At every other inspection, there had been teachers nearby, or walking around. But not here. Not even Mrs. Jarven was in the room to announce Mr. Neilson's presence.

Mr. Neilson stood up on what looked like a makeshift stage built from wood and plastic. He held a wireless microphone in his hand, and his voice blew out of the speakers in different parts of the room as he spoke.

"Welcome, students. I'm extremely excited for you all to be able to participate in this specific inspection activity." My eyes roamed around the room, still not understanding. Still trying to figure out what was going on. They stopped at every inspector standing around the corners of the room, and then continued on to the next large shape that was attracting my attention. A large, gray, circular shape. Actually multiple gray blotches around the room.

Each one had a visible door and each door was shut tightly closed. The outsides of the shapes were mostly metal and there were three steps covered in a carpet like material leading up to the doors. Just glancing around the room, I already counted possibly twenty different gray structures.

"As you can all tell, we have brought in some newer technology for all of you to try out in this activity." He waved his hand around the room to indicate the odd structures. Every student looked around and murmurs rose from the crowd.

"These are how we are planning on putting you through assigned simulations."

He paused after the word simulations, allowing the crowd to react. It felt like he was an actor of a play, and was giving out lines trying to pique the interest of the crowd. And it was working.

"Each simulation will force you all to carry out specific tasks. Your goal is to complete the specific task in a timely fashion, and get the best possible score you can get. Afterwards, you all will be ranked based on how well you completed your tasks, and everyone in the bottom third of rankings will be doing chores tomorrow."

After mopping a dirty hallway floor for two hours, I was definitely not in the mood to go through that again.

"Good luck."

The microphone shut off and Mr. Neilson stepped off the stage.

The crowd began talking all at once, a cacophony of noise filling the room. People began to shift in different directions, and after a minute or so visible lines were being formed in front of each of the gray containers. I quickly got in one of the lines, not wanting to be forced to stand in the back of a line for a long time. I'd already had enough of that from my Animus fitting.

The line moved faster than I expected as students walked into the door of the container and then walked out looking disoriented. Many of the students who finished looked confused, like they didn't understand at all how the world worked.

Then I was stepping up the carpeted steps and opening the door to a completely black chamber. It felt like walking into a dark cave, and I couldn't see anything once the door came shut behind me. I walked to what I believed to be the center of the circular floor, and tried to look around to see if I could make out anything or anyone else in the miniature room.

Then lights came glaring on from the walls surrounding me. Even the floor lit up, a bright white color that filled my vision. Black dots appeared in front of me and then something lifted up from the floor and pressed against my leg. My vision was messed up from the sudden glaring light and so when I felt the sharp pinch of something on my arm, I was shocked by it. But by then, I couldn't move, and I could now see small patches of plastic probably mixed with something else pressed against my skin like stickers.