Leo

Tock was the next student to pass her test. She leapt from her desk and rushed over, her footsteps loud and echoing through the theatre. Trying to come up with an answer to the freckled girl’s impossible question, Leo and Lumia were lost in their thoughts. When Tock read the question herself, she breathed a long and quiet, “Oh.”

This is impossible, thought Leo, staring right through the freckled girl’s screen. These are advanced theories that don’t get covered until university. In secondary school we get told what they are, but comparing them like this? That’s not something they’d test a high schooler on! Who would bother memorising it?

Raphael was next to finish his test and joined them at the freckled girl’s desk. Alan followed closely behind. Her head bowed, Morgan finally decided to take a risk and stood at her desk. She turned this way and that, as if expecting someone to admonish her, but when no punishment came she straightened her back and begrudgingly joined the rest of the group. Once all six were gathered and caught up on the issue, Morgan signed a question.

‘Does anyone know the answers?’

Leo shook his head. ‘I can think of one.’

Tock held up two fingers, Raphael one, Alan shrugged, and Lumia held up three fingers. Morgan held up two herself, then signed, ‘That is nine items in total. We can answer.’

Alan waved his hands in objection. ‘Overlap.’

Of course. If two people had the same item then they wouldn’t be able to complete the question. But say they all had at least one item overlapping, how many people would they need to collect answers from to correctly answer this one question? How many other students had equally impossible questions?

‘Don’t risk it,’ signed Raphael. ‘I saw someone next to me get an answer wrong. The terminals don’t tell you what you got wrong. They only lock you out.’

‘We could be here all day!’ Alan replied.

‘Why not talk?’ Tock signed.

Leo shook his head. ‘Rule zero,’ he answered, referring to the rule that prevented them from communicating verbally.

She grew more frantic. ‘But we’re already cheating. Who can [unintelligible] stop us? We’re no longer [unintelligible].’

Unfortunately, Leo’s sign language was poor and there were some gestures Tock used that were unknown to him. Though he understood the general meaning of her message, Leo had no way to communicate his conclusions back to her without warbling it beyond comprehension. Every Platonian was taught some amount of sign language to ensure that an inability to speak would not cripple someone’s ability to contribute to the world. However, if it wasn’t practiced daily, it could quickly be forgotten. And Leo hadn’t used sign in well over a year.

Luckily for him, Alan had a simple answer.

‘Rule zero was different. Maybe trap.’

Tock scowled at him, then huffed and looked away.

Idiots! thought Leo, scowling. Can you fight another time?

Her eyes downcast, Morgan motioned to get everyone’s attention. ‘I do not like this. We should not be cheating.’

Leo frowned. ‘It’s not cheating. Remember rules carefully.’

She glared at him defiantly and her hands whirred a response. ‘Since when is answering other students’ questions not cheating?’

‘Since the rule that fails us if half fail.’

‘But—’

‘There’s no other way.’

Morgan hesitated. ‘When have you been [unintelligible] told not to answer other people’s questions?’

‘When have you been told that someone cannot fail you?’ He didn’t know the sign for “administrator”. To make his meaning clear, Leo added, ‘Rule one.’ Which was, Administrators cannot fail any student. It would have been amazing to discuss some of the implications of that rule, but that seemed even less possible to Leo. If he still had access to his meus’ functions he might have been able to set up a group chat, but he’d checked earlier and all the limitations imposed during test conditions were fully in place.

Morgan pursed her lips, hesitating. Hoping they were not showing the same signs of doubt as Morgan, Leo scanned everyone else’s faces. He didn’t want to admit it, but he had no idea what to do right now so he could really use their help. Tock and Alan were both glaring at Morgan, meaning they probably disagreed with black haired girl. Raphael watched her expectantly. Lumia… was smiling. Leo had a feeling she didn’t understand a thing they were saying.

What can I say to convince her? Something has to work on this cat, but what? She cares too much about doing what’s right, but in trying to uphold her sense of righteousness she’s going to jeopardise the entire class. Everyone will fail if she doesn’t—wait, that’s it!

Knowing his mismatched eyes unsettled people, Leo lowered his gaze. He slumped his shoulders and donned a forlorn mask, doing his best to emulate meekness. He signed, ‘Please. Help us. I can’t do this alone.’

The effect was immediate. Stealing a glance through the fringe of his messy hair, he caught Morgan's back stiffening and her jaw dropping. Guilt was a powerful motivator.

Alan began waving frantically. He held his meus up to them. Ninety minutes left.

Taking a hair clip from her pocket, Morgan pinned back one side of her shoulder-length bowl of hair, exposing an ear. Her gaze fierce, Morgan addressed her five peers. ‘Alright. I have a plan. Will you allow me to lead?’

It began slowly then spread like a flame. Raphael was the first to salute: left fist behind his back and the right one over his heart. Tock was next, then Alan. Lumia glanced at the three of them uncertainly then followed suit. Leo hesitated. He hated that salute—it was a mark of blind obedience, a practice from a past, more idiotic humanity—but this was his doing. It was the city he’d built. He exhaled slowly, then saluted.

Once everyone had offered Morgan their allegiance, she returned their salutes. There the six of them were, resolute, all forming this strange alliance, all for the sake of passing a stupid test. If their futures weren’t on the line, Leo would have laughed at the absurdity of it all.

Then it began. Morgan broke from the circle and moved to the stage. Raphael shuffled to the back of the room, and the others took positions along the walls. From beside Leo, the freckled girl waved at him from her desk then signed, ‘What about my question?’

Leo grinned at her and stuck a hand out to tussle her hair. She swatted him away, then he used that distraction to sign to her. ‘Just do what she says,’ he signed, pointing to Morgan.

Upon the stage, Morgan stood out like a beacon. Though the acoustics might have carried her voice, today the stage only helped to draw attention to her hands which moved rapidly, and a little shakily.

‘Students, you may have noticed by now that this test is about more than answering questions. If half of us fail, then we all fail. That may not seem fair to you, and in fact it is not fair. However, if you remember the rules, you will realise that there is nothing preventing us from helping each other. Look!’ She gestured towards herself and her five peers. ‘Each of us has been helping others and nobody has failed.’

Everyone watched attentively as Morgan rushed out her plan: if a student was stuck on a question, they were to raise their hands with the number of fingers raised showing how many questions they had remaining. The intent was to free up some students sooner so that there would be more helpers. A rational plan.

When her speech was complete—if you could call it that given that it was entirely silent—her gaze swept over the room once then she offered her five peers a confident nod. The plan was set, but Leo had the falling feeling that it wouldn’t be so easy.

Some questions could be answered, others couldn’t. There were more hands raised than students that could help them, and in the situation a helper was also unable to answer, another helper would be called to assist. This happened in most of the questions. Some were so complicated that after a few minutes of debates, half through sign and half by scratching text onto the helpless student’s screen, Morgan would call for the question to be skipped.

This was the third time a skip in five minutes. Leo felt responsible for it since he had been the one to offer initial assistance to a girl with beady eyes. He had almost wanted to take a shot at the question and risk the lockout, just the once, just to see if a hunch proved to be the correct answer, because as soon as he’d read her question he knew it was hopeless. Instead, he mouthed an apology to the poor girl and left her staring at the screen, her eyes turning bleary.

Is this really it? he thought. Are we just going to mark off a few students as damaged goods? Like they’re good for nothing but kindling. We throw them on the pile to keep the rest of us warm, sure, but as each of them burns the smoke gathers. Soon we’ll all be suffocating, and when we drop dead one by one, we’ll blame it all on survival.

No, he decided not to do this, getting all miserable over a test. This is what the school wanted: panicked students that made dumb mistakes, giving them all the reason they need to boot them out. After all, King’s College loved to boot out students, even the most talented. That’s what they did to—No, focus!

After taking a deep breath, Leo scanned the room for another student with a low number of questions left to answer. That was when he realised that the number of students seeking help was all of them. Hands were raised to the ceiling like electrical pylons, each carrying its own charged problem. Knowing that Leo was free to help, a few students stared at him with desperate smiles, and dark, forlorn pits for eyes.

Leo pulled out his meus. Seventy-six minutes remaining.

Gritting his teeth, Leo stomped his way to Morgan, ignoring students’ silent pleas for help. He grabbed her by the arm and dragged her behind the array of desks, so students would have to turn to see them, then placed his back towards the students to block view of the conversation.

Morgan snatched her arm away and flashed, ‘What are you doing?’

‘I don’t think it’s working,’ Leo replied. He risked a look over his shoulder and met the gazes of dozens of hand-raising students, all eyeing them curiously. ‘There are too many.’

Morgan shook her head. ‘I am aware. That is why we have to [unintelligible] students with less questions.’

‘It’s been fifteen minutes. Only two students have passed since then.’

‘There is still plenty of time.’

‘But at this rate too many will fail.’

‘It will be fine. We only need half of the students to pass.’ Her hands were getting jerkier—a sign of frustration.

Leo scowled at her. ‘We are not letting any students fail. It’s unfair.’

Her face hardened in response. ‘Then we will have to work harder to make sure that doesn’t—’

Not wanting to hear her oh-so-reasonable excuses, Leo stifled her hands with his own. However, she didn’t quite have the reaction he expected; the moment he clasped her hands she flinched back and stared at Leo aghast. He carried on regardless, too annoyed with her to care.

‘There has to be another way.’

Morgan frowned. ‘This was the best idea I could come up with given—’

‘Listen!’ he whirred frantically, cutting her off again. ‘I think they’re giving us hints. I saw one on the’—he didn’t know the gestures for “notice board”— ‘I saw it before. Have you seen anything? I think you said something about a personal message before.’

Morgan considered for a moment. ‘When I finished my test a message showed on the screen. It said, “Mistrust the one that watches over others’ shoulders, for authority is a chain that binds us to our duties.”’

Leo lowered his hands and gaped at Morgan. His thoughts raged like a storm. She had been keeping that a secret? This whole time? Did she honestly not realise that it might have been, you know, important? She’s not even a damned robot, she’s a half-baked algorithm!

Unable to deal with any of this—Morgan’s blatant idiocy, the signing, and all the terrorised faces of King’s College’s latest batch of victims—for a zeptosecond longer, he spun and stomped towards the exit. He didn’t care if people were watching, or if they thought ill of him for leaving. He was going to complete this test his own way.

There was a door tucked into a corner of the room that seemed promising. The lock indicator wasn’t glowing so he tried the handle, and to his surprise—well, not really—it slid open. He had a second to catch Morgan open her mouth to shout at him before she slammed a hand over it. Leo grinned, and then he was gone.

He entered a thin service hall and bolted through it without a care. At the end of the hall a door barred his way. He tried the handle and again it opened. As he did so, the door to the theatre slammed open and Morgan burst through. He threw himself out the service hall and took a sharp left, letting intuition guide him.

Leo dashed freely through the wide halls of King’s College. It was dead quiet, abandoned almost, save for the thumping of his own feet. A short ways along he found a stairwell. He hooked a hand around the rail and used his momentum to swing up and took the steps three at a time. At the top of the stairs he heard Morgan’s footfalls pounding through the halls. She skidded to a halt at the bottom of the staircase. She was catching him. Now on the second floor, Leo hooked back toward the theatre and picked up pace.

Mistrust them? I already do. And I’m going to let those savages know what’s going to happen if they don’t stop this choking test.

A way down the empty hall he found what he was looking for: a sign that read, “Theatre controls.” Clenching his teeth, he came to a staggered halt in front of it, nearly tripping over his own feet. At that second, Morgan rounded the top of the stairs and whipped her head in his direction. Her eyes bulged when she realised what Leo was doing and then she took off like a bullet.

Smirking, Leo ripped the door open and threw himself inside.

It took a moment for realisation to set in, and when it did, Leo’s heart sank. Inside the room was… nobody. One whole wall was a window. Through it, Leo could make out the velvet curtains that lined the theatre walls, and a hundred or so students seated at their desks, their eyes darting around excitedly due to the commotion he’d caused. The control room had no equipment of any kind, save for a desk identical to the ones that lined the theatre floor.

The sole door clicked shut on its own behind Leo—that wasn’t out of the ordinary since all doors in Plato closed on their own. But what was unexpected was the feeling of a familiar shift as the air pressure decreased ever so slightly. Outside, Morgan’s footsteps disappeared abruptly as the room’s soundproofing kicked in. Leo looked over his shoulder, panting, and unsurprisingly the door’s indicator had turned blood red. Locked.

What is this?

Cautiously, not knowing what else to do, Leo approached the desk. His heart still raced, and was getting faster. Step by step, the desk’s terminal came into view. Upon the terminal’s screen, in bold white on endless black, were printed four sky-falling words:

You are an administrator.

As all his misconceptions came crashing down on him, Leo uttered the only thought his turbulent mind could manage.

“Fuck.”