And as he got into the passenger seat, I saw bright yellow letters splashed across the back of his bulletproof vest.
They read DEPORTATION FORCE. The same words were now visible across the back bumper of that car too.
I didn’t know what they meant yet exactly. I just knew it was bad.
CHAPTER 4
Morrow Magnet High School was the whitest place on earth.
Every day I came to school, I felt like all the color had been sucked out of my life. The entire building was just so freaking sterile and bare. It was constructed entirely of transparent walls and bulletproof glass and had a massive metal fence surrounding it. Inside, not a single poster or piece of art was allowed to be hung, and every inch of furniture was painted white. Even though it was almost the end of my junior year, I still got lost all the time in this white maze of blah.
The design was supposed to keep us calm and compliant. Apparently, the founders were two psychologists who did some research about teenage angst and decided that we could only be safe in a world as pale as skim milk. All teachers were required to carry a gun, and Morrow had three mandatory checkpoints—a wrist scan, a fingerprint test, and a voice recognition gate.
“Amelia Davis,” I said into the VR speaker. “072-54-3998.”
Though I could hear the hum of the speaker digesting and processing my words and then the click of the gate catch releasing, I still quaked as I walked through. I was sure at any minute, someone would pop out from behind an aluminum column and shout, STOP! just like I’d seen this morning with Kenna.
Nobody did, though. At least not at that moment.
The student population at Morrow looked like a tide of ghosts roaming through the halls, all of us in these insanely itchy white tunics that smelled like institutional soap. Maybe this was what made Morrow still feel so foreign and frightening to me. Morrow claimed to provide “equal educational opportunities for all,” but I was one of only eight nonwhite students in a class of two hundred. Even though the principal always touted Morrow’s great math department, someone had obviously forgotten to calculate that imbalance. Plus, I was the only girl in my grade to have curves front and back. I kept my hair down so it fell over my chest because the principal had even called me in once for being “too provocative.”
“Ah, cutting it a little close, aren’t we?” said my history teacher, Ms. Marsh. (For the record, the first bell hadn’t rung yet, but that didn’t matter. Kenna and I were still the last ones in our seats.) “I will give you exactly two minutes to copy down the morning assignment. The rest of the class is already preparing for our test.”
Ms. Marsh was pacing the front of the classroom, hunched over in her white teacher’s cloak. She was either thirty or sixty; it was too hard to tell her age because she was just so saggy and sour-looking, always finding a reason to scowl. Most of my classmates were scared of her. This morning, they were fidgeting and reciting important dates to themselves to prepare for the test. But I really couldn’t get too concerned. There was a test of some sort at least once a day at Morrow. Besides, everything we learned in history was just the government’s official version of the facts.
The only subject in school that felt close to exciting was math, since two plus two would always equal four, and Kenna told me daily that creating code and deciphering algorithms was the only way we’d survive in this world of artificial intelligence. Sometimes I wondered if we should just hand everything over to the robots now, since it was pretty clear that we humans were destroying the earth and each other.
I didn’t have time to figure out how a world run by artificial intelligence would work at this very moment, though, because everyone was getting up on their feet for the morning prayer, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Morrow had smart surfaces on almost every wall, which meant we were surrounded by projections of the American flag as we recited the pledge, and I was pretty sure we were being filmed, so I always spoke up and plastered a fake patriotic smile on for this part of school. Kenna and I constantly drilled each other on flattening our vowels and pronouncing every consonant precisely so we could blend in with the rest of Morrow’s white kids. Most of the students in my grade were too self-absorbed or stressed out about test scores to suspect or even notice me. But it did feel like on this morning—more than any other, really—I had a target on my back. Or actually, embedded in that chip on my wrist.
Once we sat back down, Ms. Marsh ordered us to log in to our testing site and wait until she unlocked the exam. But as she was plugging in her teacher code, a low rumbling sound started coming from the front of the room.
The classroom lights dimmed, and the national anthem blared through our intercom. I could feel the floor vibrating underneath us, the whole building throbbing. Then a swath of air at the front of the classroom started shimmering in a giant hologram. A floating oval orb hovered and shifted along the front wall, until the President’s large, disembodied face appeared. His bare, gleaming forehead pulsated and his eyes looked squinty, like he was searching for something. Or someone. He was so big, my desk could easily fit into one of his nostrils.
“Good morning, Citizens,” the President thundered.
Everyone scrambled back up to stand at attention.
“Good morning, Mr. President,” we answered in unison.
“I come before you today with some very urgent news,” he said. “Last night, an act of treason was perpetrated upon the United States in the state of California.”
“Treason?” whispered Kenna. “What the—”
“Shhh!” Ms. Marsh hissed.
I loved Kenna so much. She said all the things I was thinking. I knew even without asking that she had seen what happened with that girl at the border last night. But I didn’t dare look her way or show her how terrified I was. My skin was already hot and tight, and I had to force myself to keep my breaths steady.
The President continued.
“I am hereby declaring a state of federal emergency and deploying our newest and most advanced team of tactical operatives. They are the United States Deportation Force, and they are tasked with arresting and detaining all illegal aliens. They may arrest suspects without a warrant. They may also enter private property without a warrant. They will also have absolute discretion to forgo deportation trials should they deem it appropriate in order to protect our country.”
Ms. Marsh started clapping and nodded at us all to do the same. At least it was something to do with my sweaty, shaking hands.
“Let me assure you,” the President continued, “we are and will continue to be the strongest, most prosperous nation on the planet. As such, it is my duty as President of these United States and commander in chief of the armed forces to also enforce mandatory curfews and accelerated monitorization in accordance with the newly enacted Alien Registration Act of 2032. Failure to comply will result in arrest, detainment, and/or prolonged internment.”