Rebel (Legend, #4)(3)

To even set foot up here, in the Sky Floors where Daniel and I live, you need a Level of at least 50.

This is how Ross City uses its Level system as an incentive. It’s meant to encourage people to do good and discourage them from being bad. Apparently, it’s the fairest government ever designed, created after Antarctica realized that the rest of the world was stuck suffering in the same cycles of tyranny and dictatorships over and over again.

I mean, I’m from the Republic. I get what Antarctica’s going for.

But as I hurry down the halls toward the entrance, all I can think about is that, no matter how virtuous the system is, some people just don’t care to be good.

Sure enough, a familiar voice behind me makes me cringe.

“Hey, it’s Wing. Hey!”

Damn it. I swear under my breath, shrug my shoulders, and pick up my pace. My glasses slide down my nose as I hurry. I push them up nervously, accidentally smudging one eyepiece a little with my finger. Despite Antarctica’s advanced technology, the chip in my head can’t fix my eyes—which were damaged by the Republic’s plagues long ago—so glasses are still a part of my life.

Behind me, the voice only gets closer. Now I can hear the beat of other footsteps accompanying it.

“Hey, Wing, slow down. Where are you going in such a rush?”

Alan. Emerson. And Jenna. It’s too late to avoid them. So instead, I take a deep breath and try to look calm as they come up on either side of me.

We’re all the same age, except they’re undergraduate seniors, whereas I’m in the graduate program. The first, Emerson, grins as he slows down to match my stroll.

“You’re always heading out in such a rush,” he says, putting a casual hand on my backpack and grabbing the top strap of it. He pulls me back.

I shrug, keeping my eyes straight. “Just meeting a friend,” I reply. To my relief, my voice stays even and lighthearted.

“Your friend?” Jenna says on my other side. “Pressa, right? The assistant janitor?”

My friend Pressa doesn’t attend the university. She doesn’t have a high enough Level. Instead, she manages all the floor bots that sweep around our halls, cleaning them every morning and afternoon.

I hear the sound of my backpack unzipping behind me before I can respond. “You’re amazing, Wing,” Alan, the third student, marvels in false admiration. “All our books are downloaded into our virtual systems, but you still carry physical science books around?”

Emerson takes one of the books out of my bag. “That’s because he doesn’t use them for studying,” he says, flipping the book open.

I snatch my backpack away. “Be careful with that.”

But he’s already shaking the book. Out fall delicately pressed flowers—goldenrods, bluebonnets, fragile winter lilies—that I’d carefully placed between the pages.

I suck in my breath at the sight, then drop into a hurried crouch to pick them up. Already, several of them have come apart from the fall, leaving their ruined petals strewn on the marble floor. My cheeks redden as I hear a couple of snickers above me. The light sheen of sweat on my nose makes my glasses slide down again, and I push them back up, hating the awkward gesture.

“I didn’t know you were such a talented florist,” Jenna says.

I try to ignore her and pick up the rest of the dried plants, then place them back into their pages. Now other people in the halls are looking at me as I work. I love flowers—their colors, their fragility, the way they grow, the way they smell. I was going to dry these out and put them into frames. But I’m too embarrassed to say it.

Pressing flowers isn’t the kind of hobby that boys are allowed to take up. It’s not the kind of interest that gets you friends. My brother would probably never be caught dead doing this.

“Need some help?” Emerson asks me, stooping down to my level. As he bends down, he intentionally steps on the flowers still on the floor.

A surge of anger pierces through my calm, and I shove him backward. “Get off those,” I snap at him. But the flowers are already ruined.

ACCOSTING CLASSMATE | ?10 POINTS



The text pops up over my view before I can stop myself, and the negative points glow red in my account.

Emerson gives me a mock look of shock. “Oh! Sorry—I didn’t see where they were.” He holds his hands up. “It was an accident. Don’t get too rough.”

This is how they treat me every day. It’s a careful kind of bullying, one that doesn’t trip the Level system. They’re not saying anything obviously cruel to me. They’re not pushing or shoving me. So the Level system doesn’t catch it, doesn’t deduct points for harassment.

Emerson hands my book back to me, then pats me twice on the shoulder. “Well, hope you have a fun time with the janitor.” His voice stays friendly and warm. Yet another way he tricks the Level system. “If you see your brother, tell him I said hi.”

Jenna brightens at the mention of Daniel. “Tell him I said hi too.”

The last time Daniel came to see me at the university, Jenna had blushed bright red and giggled all around him. Emerson and Alan had peppered him with questions about what it was like being the champion for a nation. Daniel, as usual, kept his answers polite and distant, but it didn’t change how I felt standing there on the sidelines.