The Gumbe Urquhart Lipsitt Academy for the Gifted, or its colloquial

abbreviation, the GULAG, is a pretty building—the prism roof-shingles on the

school’s low-hanging roof catch the sun to make different colors all over the
ordinarily gray and dusty ground; the running track is new, neatly laid out; the
classrooms have the highest tech available. Most kids would die for such an
awesome school (to use the language they would probably use)—but I only wish
that it were a little bit—slightly—less high-tech.

You see, last year, when I went to Bernabit P.S. 1035, only about half the
kids used the Remote Connection Movement Devices, the RCMDs. Mostly they
were the rich kids whose parents could afford to pay for them to lie in bed at home
with a camera hookup and a joystick, showing off. The rest of us kids, the ones
who were actually walking to school (as we became a smaller and smaller minority
toward the end of the school year), just gave the big blue plastic shells on wheels
(and the video camera and monitor in the front) dirty looks. The good thing is, the
plastic arms are so hard to move with a joystick, the rich kids couldn’t punch us.
Besides, we would have run away first. It’s impossible to move those things
quickly, they’re so huge.

Each one of our group, who actually did attend school in-person, banded
together and swore not to defect to the RCMD group. We’d say nasty things about
them, shoot dirty looks, and (when the lunch ladies weren’t watching) cream their
video camera “eyes” with the disgusting artificial key lime pie tapioca we got at
lunch, so they couldn’t see anything until a custodian wiped them down. The best
thing ever was to do a Helen Keller—where we plugged up their audio receivers
and their video camera eyes, so they couldn’t hear or see a thing going on at
school.

Those were pretty awesome times. But one by one, the people in our group
—even the ones who had sworn the loudest never to leave, said the worst things
about the RCMD’s—would convince their parents to buy them one. And as soon
as that happened, they would stride into—excuse me—wheel into—school with a
smug expression on their face, and start laughing and hanging out with the rest of
the RCMD’s as though we had never existed.
 By the time my last school year at Bernabit drew to an end, there were only
five people—including me—in the group that actually walked to school, as far as
we knew of. Everyone else came in an RCMD. Even some of the teachers started
“tele-commuting.” Mr. Taffat, our gym teacher, was the first to do that. He’s
extraordinarily plump for a gym teacher (well, actually, it seems like all gym
teachers are that way) and, from what we could see, hated exercising—so the
remote connection opportunity was perfect for him. He could follow us around the
track without moving a muscle.

I reflected sadly on the state of affairs with the rest of my lunch group—four
other people—two days before the last day of school at Bernabit.

“I still can’t believe that traitor Sarah,” Lilah fumed, violently creaming her
potatoes with her fork with a vicious glance toward Sarah’s RCMD. “She said just
four weeks ago that there was no way, even if her parents bought her one, that she
would ever leave like Beryl did!”

“I know. Isn’t she just awful?” chimed in Rebecca.

“Rich kids,” sniffed Juliette, which was a little odd, since Juliette’s parents
made the most out of any in our group—that said, it was from working at a nuclear
cleanup plant, so maybe not the most ideal job.

“You’re going to have a hard time at GULAG, Etta,” Lilah said

sympathetically to me. “I can’t imagine you liking anyone there. They’ll probably
all come to class in RCMD’s.”

“Why?” I demanded.

“Well, just think. See Berne over there?” Lilah pointed to a particularly
gregarious RCMD from which a lot of noise was issuing. “He’s going to GULAG.
So is Yuri, and so is Josh. Not to mention—”

“That traitor—” Juliette said, miffed.

“—Sarah,” Lilah finished. “Yeah.”

Over the next few days, I tried to convince myself that certainly there would
be some other kid at GULAG who didn’t commute in an RCMD, but none of the
people I knew (in-person) from Bernabit (which was the largest public school in
the area) were going, and since, from what I’d heard, Bernabit was actually higher
in non-RCMD school attendance than most schools, there was not too much
chance that my life at GULAG would be very pleasant. There would probably be
one other person in the entire school who couldn’t get an RCMD because their
parents were too poor. One other person! And I thought I was unlucky to have a
group of four at Bernabit.

On my first day of school, I packed my backpack, threw on some clothes,

and walked the long mile to GULAG. It was visible from far away, with the
aforementioned prisms, and as it came into eyesight I began to dread my going
there more than ever. So what that I had gotten the best test scores at Bernabit? It
wasn’t like I would learn more, being so scared of all the RCMD’s.

The front doors of the school are long and thin, made of two panes of glass,
with a continuous stream of water running between the two panes, giving the door
a rippling appearance. I almost thought the doors were made of water, but then I
realized that there was a handle to grip and pull. Feeling very stupid, I pulled and
walked inside.

At first it felt more like a hospital or corporate lobby more than it did a
school. It was cool and airy, with a large empty square atrium. In the center there
was another water installation, a long sheet of glass off which water dripped into a
shallow mosaic pool. Around the pool were various potted plants, probably getting
sun through the greenhouse-like rooftop. I looked around for a second and
marveled. This school was rich, for sure. The floor was made of marble and
granite. The different colors created the large school insignia and motto—“To
Learn is to Live. To Live is to Learn.”

Looking up I noticed that there were three floors above me. Each floor had
their own hallway, balcony-style, above the atrium. The glass paneling around
each hallway also had the water going through it, like the doors had. I wondered
how much it all had cost.

My wonderment was broken, though, by the dreaded noise of an RCMD—

that steady whirring, growing louder as it approached. I broke from my gaze
around the school and stood at attention as a red RCMD approached. Red ones, I
knew, meant administration or a teacher. That was unfortunate, but not entirely
unexpected. The desk job workers, like enrollment specialists, almost always tele-
commuted. It was no better to sit at a desk in school than it was to sit at a desk at
home. And besides, it meant that you didn’t have to get up as early.

“Good morning,” said the flabby, unsmiling woman in the monitor. It looked
as though she was sitting up against a headboard. “Are you new here?”

“Yes,” I nodded, feeling smaller than ever in front of the RCMD that
towered above me.

“You must be Etta George,” she said voicelessly.

“Yes,” I nodded again.

“Welcome to the Gumbe Urquhart Lipsitt Academy for the Gifted,” she
droned. “From what I see, you’re taking—did you sign up for Jussert or Mandel?”

“Jussert,” I replied, thinking back to which teachers we’d requested.

“Alright, good. Your first class starts in about three minutes, in room 245,”
she said. “Take the hallway to your left and turn left again. 245 will be the one
with the red door. Questions? No? Have a good day.” With that, she—the RCMD
—whirred abruptly away.

I started walking toward the hallway, and that was when I heard a massive
noise. At first I thought it was chatter, or perhaps rain, but then I realized it was the
joined noise of what must have been forty or fifty RCMD’s. I saw them coming
toward me and for a single, absurd moment I had a vision that they would run me
down, but I immediately told myself that that was the stupidest thing to think
about. I did not, however, want to walk toward them when they were coming my
way, so instead I swerved into the girl’s restroom.

It was a long, big restroom, with at least ten stalls, but it was utterly silent
and totally, completely empty. Each stall’s door was open. Indeed, there was a fine
film of dust on everything—the sink, the toilets, the toilet paper—even though
otherwise it was impeccable. It meant, I realized, that no one had been here for a
long time. I suddenly felt homesick for Bernabit, its crowded bathroom, the long
line of girls waiting to use the not particularly fancy but serviceable three bathroom
stalls—but even that, or much of it, was a thing of the past, because the long line of
girls had dwindled down to a few, and the noise of running sinks was quieter.

I washed my hands, for no particular reason except to perhaps validate the

fact that I was there, to feel the water on my hands and think that it was something
the RCMD’s could not do—but they could always wash their hands at home, and I
felt a little defeated.

I walked through the hallway. As far as I could see, there were only
RCMD’s—in front of me, behind me, to my left and to my right. I saw their video
camera eyes swivel toward me occasionally. I would almost have been happy to
see Berne, or Yuri, or Josh, or even the traitor Sarah—at least they would have
been RCMD’s I’d known, back when they actually came to class in person. But I
doubt Berne, or Yuri, or Josh, or even Sarah would want to see me. Especially not
Sarah, I realized. After Lilah and I did the Helen Keller on her?

I dragged my feet on the way to my first class, in room 245. I walked in at

the back of a long line of RCMD’s. The tables could seat two, and all the RCMD’s
sat side by side. I sat alone, in the back, and their big plastic shells blocked my
view—for the most part. I was able to catch a glimpse of red plastic in the front.
That was sad. The teacher was an RCMD—and in physics, too!

The rest of my classes blended together in their unmemorableness. I

remembered clearly, though, that I never saw another person attending in-person. I
always sat alone. Each teacher came remotely and taught remotely. At lunch time,
I saw Sarah. She whirred over toward me, her face looking abnormally large on the
monitor.

“Etta!” she practically shouted. “I haven’t seen you in ages—”

Yeah, because you stopped coming to school in-person, I thought.

“—that’s a shame. Your parents still wouldn’t get you an RCMD? They
have a really nice new version, high-def too. They’re talking about better 3D
enhancements, I hear Yuri’s dad is working on the new version. By the way,” she
said sweetly, “I forgive you for the whole cream pie in the RCMD’s face thing. I
know it was Lilah’s idea, not yours. But you really need to convince your parents
to buy you one of the new RC’s, Etta!”
 “I wouldn’t for the world, Sarah,” I said in what I hoped was as strong a
voice as possible (although I thought I’d said it rather dejectedly) and she
attempted to turn around. It was comical to watch her as she turned so slowly,
huffing at her joystick, to whir off. It was the worst imitation of turning on one’s
heel and stalking off from an argument that I had ever seen. That was one thing I
had over the RCMD’s—but that reminded me that I’d be lucky to even get into
another argument. Most of them would probably stay away from me.

I wished poignantly in that moment that my parents would buy me an

RCMD. They probably would if I asked hard enough, if I explained. If I told them
there was no one else at school who went there in-person.

The bell rang to release—it was Friday, an early release day—and everyone
poured outside, where all the RCMD’s immediately began chattering with each
other, making the most of the few minutes before the custodian (also an RCMD)
would tell them to go into the storage unit where they disconnected. As the
RCMD’s headed off, grumbling, to the storage unit, I started thinking about how I
would ask my parents to buy the RCMD. Maybe they had the money, maybe they
didn’t. I would have to ask.

It felt colder now outside than it had inside the school, pleasantly so, and I
took a deep breath of fresh air. As I did so, I caught the smell of blackberries,
hanging over from an adjoining house’s lot, and their roses, thorny pink and yellow
roses—and I realized I had something that the RCMD’s—even with all the latest
technology, 3D enhancements, and all—I had something that the RCMD’s didn’t.
Surely they could talk about being able to lie in bed and go to school at the same
time.

But could they smell the roses?

THE END.