Scourge (Book 1)
This work in progress by Jennifer Loustau is a YA climate resilience novel, the first in a series of four entitled The Scud Series. Here is the beginning of the work, the opening pages…..
264 days to go
That’s the first thing I see when I get up. It’s up in the right hand corner, beside the date. I’m staring at my laptop screen, waiting for the weekly schedule, looking at the school logo, a tree whose roots and branches fill a circle, and around the edge are the words “Finis est Origine.” I can’t believe I go to a school that has a latin motto. You don’t have to know latin to see that the motto means “the end is the beginning” and man, I couldn’t agree more.
We’ve been here 379 days. We have 264 days to go. That’s 69% of the way, almost 70%. Surely we can make it. Maybe we can make it. Hopefully I will make it.
There are 365 days in a year. On average there are 170 days in a school year. That’s less than 50% of a year. 47% actually. So that’s how we get four years of high school in under two years of boarding school. We don’t have the summer off. We don’t have semester breaks. We don’t even go home for holidays. It’s a maximization of time.
Our time. We 16-year-olds. We need to maximize our time because the scourge has wasted so much of it.
Take my time, for example. This human’s race began when I was 5, when my brother Wik was born. I realized when he was born that something was wrong: he cried too much; he was anxious; he didn’t sleep. At 6 I found a guy doing jiu—jitsu in Clark Park. He was challenging anyone to knock him down, and no one could do it. He was like a rubber man. I thought that might work for me and Wik. Even after learning the basic kicks I was still too little to protect Wik, but at least it was helping me.
At 7 I found out about Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Wik was just learning to talk. Mostly what I got from him was “Twibby! Twibby” and a lot of tears, but it kept me going. Brazilian taught me that if I did get knocked down, I could get back up.
At 8 I started competing in BJJ junior competitions. By now Wik was sleeping through the night with occasional nightmares. He couldn’t remember them in the morning.
By 10 I was winning BJJ junior competitions. And Wik was telling me his dreams in the morning. He was a happy kindergartner and his dreams made him laugh. I laughed, too, but I knew they were prophetic. If he said, “I dreamed you stepped in dog poop,” I knew to check my shoes before going into school.
By 12 I was entering senior competitions, but before I turned 13, the scourge broke out and everything was shut down. Everything. No more school. No more Clark Park. No more BJJ classes or competitions. No more walks to Pop’s Pops for the world’s most expensive and delicious popsicles. Not even any visits to see Garma, our grandmother.
I sat around for 13.
I started sneaking to BJJ classes at 14, and sat around the rest of the time.
Wik told me a dream in which I lived in a castle and a fire-breathing dragon guarded the gate so that no one could get out. But then he said the bad guys came and they couldn’t get in. When I heard about Goshen Academy having a pod-program, I knew from Wik’s dream that I’d better go.
I applied to Goshen at 15, got in, and started boarding school with 499 other 15-year-olds, away from home, away from Wik and Mom and Dad, away from the scourge. The deal: stay inside the campus and graduate in two years with a high school degree.
Well, not quite two years. 643 days, to be precise. 11% of my life.
I’ve programmed my desktop calendar to count down to graduation. It keeps me focused. 264 days to go. If I were a prisoner, I’d scratch the days into the walls with a rusty nail.
But I’m not a prisoner; I’m here by my own Free Will.
Aren’t I?
And Wik? He says he’s fine. He calls me whenever he has a memorable dream. Notice I didn’t say an important dream. I said a memorable dream. If he can remember it all the way to a phone conversation with me, he tells me. And I listen.
*
Boy keeps his eyes on the chessboard, oblivious to what’s going on around him. He has his buds in his ears, probably listening to Classic ‘Pac, the tempos meshing with his moves on the board. Guozhi moves a knight and slams the timer; Boy is in step right behind him, moving his bishop with his right hand, then slamming the timer with the same hand.
I’m standing behind Boy, watching the board, but also taking in the scene around them. A half dozen fast games are in play, with the timer slamming sounding like popcorn in hot oil. There are about 20 students here for the Chess Club meeting, probably all chess players except me. I wouldn’t normally be here except that I wasn’t scheduled for Campus Guard tonight. I had thought, with Chess Intramurals coming up, it might be good to get the lay of the land, since it will be our job to make sure the tourney runs smoothly and the campus stays trouble-free.
I can tell Boy and Guozhi are playing a serious game because Boy has got earbuds blocking out the sound of timer slappings. And Guozhi keeps looking up, glancing around the room, scowling, like he’s distracted by the surrounding pops. Every now and then they both lock eyes on each other, and then Guozhi, who’s sitting across from me, scowls even harder.
Boy told me Guozhi challenged him to the match. I know Boy’s ELO ranking is a good thousand points higher than Guozhi’s, so it won’t make much difference to Boy whether he wins or loses. But he’s stubborn the way only Philly boys can be. Guozhi, though, would probably move up in the chess world if he could beat Boy. I’m guessing Guozhi is playing defensively because he thinks for longer between moves than Boy does. But if Guozhi is hoping for Boy to make a mistake, well, that’s not great chess strategy.
I don’t know much about chess, beyond the basic moves. But I can see the time left on their two clocks. Everyone in the room is playing 30 minute games, and Boy still has 15 minutes on his clock while Guozhi only has four. And Guozhi has lost his queen. My bet is that Guozhi’s challenge to Boy’s school champ title is not threatening. The look on Guozhi’s face is, though.
I like Guozhi. He sometimes tutors me in Mandarin for free. He doesn’t live in Mandarin Village because he is a native speaker; he lives in Arabic Village. But he comes over some evenings and talks to me. He’ll say in Mandarin I would love to have some chest hairs, and I will answer either Would you like some tea with your order? in which case he’ll know I didn’t understand the subtle intonation, or I’ll answer something like Oh, you hairless rat, and he’ll give a high five.
Right now his scowl reads Oh, you hairless rat.
Inches from my crossed arms, Boy’s pigtails are bobbing to a beat ever so slightly. His Afro is getting longer and longer, with no one on campus to manage it for him. This morning, at his request, I arranged his mop of kinky curls into a row of pigtails from his forehead to the nape of his neck, like a horse’s mane, and they all bob like cartoon characters with his every beat. I can hear the pulse of his music, but I don’t think anyone else can.
Yikes! Guozhi is standing up and he’s swinging at Boy. He might be grabbing the wires dangling from Boy’s ears, but he’s misjudging the distance and instead he’s kicking the table and all the pieces are toppling over. He’s embarrassed and angry, so now he’s knocking the whole dang table over and the pieces are raining onto the floor. He’s shouting, “What are you doing? Why you have that phone there?”
Then I realize that Guozhi is shouting at me. I’m the hairless rat!
“Me? I’m waiting for my parents to call!” I hold up my cell phone and then realize that Guozhi thinks I’m videoing the game. He must think I’m sending the video to someone who is guiding Boy remotely.
“You cheat!” shouts Guozhi, and he stomps out of the Commons, leaving all of us to crawl around the floor and gather up the scattered chess pieces.
Teacher Andy walks up asking, “What’s the problem?” Since he’s the impromptu director, it’s his job to referee and call games.
“I have no idea,” says Boy. “I was just playing the game.”
“Guozhi thought I was cheating, Teacher Andy,” I blurt out. “He saw me holding my phone and Boy with his earbuds in, and Guozhi was falling behind, and I guess he thought Boy was getting coaching from someone remotely.”
Boy turns to me. “He did, Trib? Why would I do that?”
“Don’t ask me,” I answer, a little defensively.
Boy turns back to look at his teammates who are gathering for the drama. “The Brother knows how to wound. To think I would need to cheat to beat his ass!” Boy clutches his chest and shakes his head in mock heartbreak and his friends laugh.
“Easy, Loverboy,” says Teacher Andy. “Time heals all wounds.”
“That it does,” says Boy grinning. “Now where are my pieces?” he asks as he sets the table upright.
“Here, Boy,” says Shmoo, the only girl on his team, the Raucous Rooks. “We found all the pieces except a pawn, a white pawn,” she says, handing him two handfuls of pieces to dump in his cloth pouch.
“Guozhi took my starter pawn, so I won’t be able to play the Sicilian Opening,” jokes Boy. It’s an inside joke and he doesn’t bother to explain it to me. He pockets the oilcloth board, stashes the pouch in another pocket, and unplugs his timer. “I’m going to bed,” he says brushing past me.
“Hey! Wait for me!” I say, spinning around to face his back. “Don’t you want to talk about what just happened?”
He turns halfway around, stops, looks at the floor, and then faces me. “Trib, this is not your problem. Butt out.” And then he leaves.
I’m furious! From zero to 100 in a flash, a throbbing contradiction to the First Law of Thermodynamics! I start to say, “Hey, buster, don’t you—” but Boy is gone, pushing through the double doors of the Commons, vanishing into the night darkness.
I stand there looking stupid, watching the doors slowly shut. What did I do to deserve that? Boy clowns for the team, and then he turns on me? What just happened here with Guozhi was more than Teacher Andy took in. More than the team took in. More than the other chess players took in. Guozhi, I can see, is primed for a fight. And Boy knows it. Is he mad at me because I saw it, too?
Don’t get me wrong; Boy’s being a diva and I’d like to make it about me and pick a fight with my boyfriend, but in all honesty, I know it’s more complicated than that.
Judging by what I just saw, keeping the peace on campus will not be easy. And it is my problem; I’m a member of the Campus Guard. We have to make sure this kind of scene doesn’t happen during the tournament.
I may not know much about chess, but I do know how to fight. My challenge is to figure out how not to fight.
263 days to go
Monday morning, September 8th, 263 days to go. I’m brushing my hair, reflecting on my reflection, and reflecting on the speed with which the first year at Goshen Academy passed. We’re already in the second year but there’s no velocity to this year; it’s already slowed down to a snail’s pace. I guess everything last year was exciting: picking a capstone project, finding a boyfriend, finding other friends mostly in the Campus Guard. Now it’s September and graduation next Spring is looking like an eternity away.
I haven’t shaken off my anger at Boy yet. He was so rude to me. What did he say? This isn’t your problem, butt out?
It is my problem. It’s been my problem for as long as I can remember. I can remember as soon as my baby brother Wik was born, it’s felt like my problem. He screamed so much, so suddenly, so out of the blue, and I used to say to Mom, “Baby Wik’s upset about something! What is it?” And my mother would always say, “No, he’s not, Trib. That’s just what babies do.” And she would pick him up and bounce him on her shoulder, and he would keep screaming. I was convinced that Wik was trying to tell me something. And that I had to defend him from it. I was 5 years old.
“Hey, you, in the mirror! Stop looking so naïve!”
That girl who looks back at me, she seems incredibly uptight, like she thinks the world’s coming to an end and she’s anxious about missing something important if she goes to class. The face that looks back at me appears to be even more stressed than I feel. The face with bright green eyes, glowing peachy skin, and regular white teeth are packaged with a friendly smile. But there’s that crease between her eyebrows that Dad always calls out. “Trib, you’re frowning again. You’re going to crack in two if you keep that up.” I stick out my tongue at her, startling the frown into oblivion.
“You’re not the only one who worries,” I snarl at the reflection. “Well, we got a lot to worry about, too.” Then I stare into the green eyes, we both shrug our shoulders, and I straighten out the crooked part in her hair.
I’ve got to finish this school year with high marks and strong recommendations. That is, if I’m ever going to save the world for Wik. He’s been having apocalyptic dreams all his life, and I’ve been trying to figure them out all his life. When he was little, he was the happiest-go-luckiest kid in the daytime, but he had these nightmare visions that were terrifying. He would talk to me while he was in it, sound asleep with his eyes wide open, sort of whimpering, calling me by name, “Tribby! Tribby!” And then he’d fall asleep and not remember a thing in the morning.
And I’ve been trying to figure out what was wrong ever since, going on eleven years now.
I hit on bats in third grade, because they were mammals that could “see” in the dark. All third graders love bats. But my love held true through fourth grade, and then fifth grade. The older I got, the more enamored I grew with bats. They’re the only mammal that can fly. When the scourge hit in 7th grade and I learned that bats resist aging, cancer, and viruses, I was hooked. I wanted to study the make-up of bats, to figure out why they are so much better suited for this world than we humans are.
I’ll be 17 when I enter a university program – hopefully MIT – where I want to intern in the Broad Institute for digital biology. By the time I’m 20, I ‘ll have a Masters in Science. That is if I get into MIT, and if I complete this capstone creating a 3-D map of a bat, and if I don’t get kicked out of Goshen on some stupid transgression. This is my problem, what I have to think about today, this morning, as I make my way across campus to the computer lab. The mental challenge today is not to fixate on heightening security for the Intramural Chess Tournament this coming weekend.
It’s hard not to obsess on the chess tourney. Campus Guard, or CG, has been discussing it for a week already, but no decision has been made as to whether or not supplemental security needs to be hired. The protocol for requesting additional security guards is complex and maybe the timeframe for purifying an additional ten guards entering the campus is too short. Since purification takes five days of isolation both ways, coming in and leaving, the decision will have to be made today. Goshen’s success rate at keeping the pandemic scourge at bay – outside the 600-acre campus boundary – has been excellent but not without some tense moments. The many gravel walkways between buildings, the leafy paths through the woods, the fields and garden that made up the Farm, they all require careful surveillance from us, the student-manned CG.
It looked like there was a breach in scourge-sequester two weeks ago when a band of townies deliberately entered the campus and pretended to hunt in the woods. Scaling the chain-link fence wasn’t too hard, and the woods are too vast to surveille entirely with security cameras. Fortunately, some Goshen students running the cross-country trail spotted the boys and reported them to the CG as soon as they got back to the gym. CG suited up in protective gear, armed themselves with Tazers and cell phones, and fanned out through the woods. In all, it took about thirty minutes to corner the boys and force their departure.
I wasn’t on duty that shift, but I read the report afterward and felt badly about it. The boys were about the age of my brother Wik, tweens, and I can’t blame them for wanting to roam freely, especially in a place as beautiful as the Goshen campus woods, untouched forest since the school’s founding in the eighteenth century. On the other hand, for the pod to survive, the school has to maintain 100% isolation from the world outside. Otherwise the two-year program will fall apart and the students will have to return to the chaos of the outside world.
Inside these fences, it is a peaceful world. The buildings are mostly old, probably out of date, but there’s a comfort to the excess space, like extra food in the refrigerator. I like looking down the long, long corridor of Main, so long I can’t see the other end. I like looking at the old photographs on the walls, studying faces that were my age a hundred years ago. Being sequestered in this world feels as though I have literally stepped out of my time into a simpler past.
I feel lucky I qualified for the Goshen program. It was exclusive and highly competitive and I am pretty sure my brother will never be admitted. I’m a scholarship student which is even more competitive. The alternative was to stay at home, do remote learning until age 18, and then hope for a dangerous, low-paid job as an “essential worker,” like my parents who are both medical data specialists. As it turns out, my extra-curricular training in the Brazilian tradition of jiu-jitsu gave me the edge I needed to be accepted into Goshen. Ironically, though, I’ve had to keep BJJ training pretty much under my hat since arriving here. If anyone ever knew of my infractions, I’d be bounced out of here so fast, I’d never have a shot at MIT.
I wish I could just kick and punch my way right into the gates of MIT and be welcomed as a hero. I know I could do it. But you can’t kick and punch at penny ante rules and levels and forms, and that’s what the world is full of now.
Take this computer lab where I study, the showpiece of the Goshen campus, built with Atlantis money, home of the state-of-the-art Genome Compiler. It’s amazing what it does. Scientists all over the Mid-Atlantic region send us files to run. And I know how to run them, thanks to Teacher Mage giving me tutorials and extra time outside of class. But the excitement is all inside the computer. My job is to stand there and make sure the machine stays plugged in.
And now, reading last night’s security report on the computer screen, the worry of guarding the campus comes flooding back: the report is terse and dry, but I can imagine the students sneaking out of their rooms, massing in the boys’ dorm corridor, whispering their threats at each other, taking a few wild swings. It’s my job – as a CG guard – to keep the campus secure and scourge-free. And with the Chess Tourney distracting CG and everyone else this weekend, it will be harder than ever to keep the lid on this boiling pot.
When the 50-person CG met last night, it was clear to us that all 50 members would have to work in two twelve-hour shifts all weekend. “Naw-w-w, kill me,” whined Robo. Generally, he is the most rah-rah CG member. “I got a life,” he moaned last night.
“No, you don’t, Roberts,” sassed back Cobalt. “We know everything about you. We are the EFF-ESS-BEE of Goshen Academy and you have ENN-O life.”
“You are one skinny life,” said Gwenny, wrapping her arm around Robo’s shoulders. “You could use some fleshing out. Double up with me, Robo.”
“Awww! Oooh! Robo’s getting’ the treatment right now!” the other kids mocked.
“No! Guys! I have a presentation Monday morning! Honest! I gotta work this weekend!”
“So do we all, my friend. Suck it up.”
The only exemption is the one CG who is also a chess player, Shmoo, scheduled to play in the tournament. A lot of people aren’t happy about the extra work; the faculty member who sponsors the CG, the students who run lab experiments around the clock (including me, but I can monitor mine from my cell phone wherever I am), and the other slackers who need the free time on the weekends to catch up on their work. The alternative, however, of hiring extra help, is not seriously considered.
Extra security from outside the campus pod costs a lot and that expense will have to come out of the CG budget, which in reality means out of our pockets, the CG members. I don’t want to do that because I will have to work extra hours to pay for the extra expense, and I object to that option on principle. Also I don’t want to. My studies keep me damn busy as it is. Extra work hours in the Atlantis Sort Center reminds me of coal miners, working to earn credit – or scrip -- at the company store, but never making quite enough money to get out of debt. I maintain a lean personal budget – no candy, no game bucks, no games, no new clothes – to make sure I’m not humiliated by Atlantis’s traps for nearly-free labor.
On the other hand, as Shmoo, representing the Chess Clubs, explained to the CG last week, emotions are running high right now. The language villages are edgy. The Spanish Village last night erupted around midnight and the CG had to break up a tussle between two brothers, one of whom was dating a girl from the Mandarin Village suspected of being a spy for the Beijing Bishops chess team. Shmoo did a good job of pointing out the risks, but I think that the students in general are bored and looking for some drama. I’m not sure where the line between reality and imagination lies. Or more accurately, the line between boredom and escape.
The entire student body has been called to a special Community Meeting to discuss this weekend’s security. I have to put my lab project on hold and get over to Main to the Community Room. There’s a good chance I will have to defend the CG’s position, since I’m the one most put out by the threat of calling in extra security. As I hurry down the hall Boy sweeps in beside me, all twinkly like he wasn’t an SOB last night, and he says, “Hey, Babe, slow down. The fire’s already here,” and smiles at me.
I look at him sideways. “Feeling better this morning?”
“Yes, ma’am. Sorry ‘bout dat.” We settle into two chairs off the far-right aisle and I tell him what I think this unscheduled meeting is about: the CG report I just read.
Last night I wasn’t called out of bed, but I can well imagine the melodrama, two boys being held back by the CG’s, shouting expletives at each other in really good Spanish (who teaches them this stuff?), and the extra “paperwork” required by school rules reporting the incident to the school Executive Council. Normally EXCO wouldn’t be too lathered about a late night village incident, but this week they are also on edge and don’t need much excuse to call in reinforcement security if they feel that the CG can’t maintain order.
We’re all crammed in the Community Room, looking around for whoever called the meeting. Someone stands up in the front row and ponderously approaches the stage. Oh, no, I catch a glimpse of the shiny bald head. It’s Dean Abee, never our guest at the CG meetings, third in charge of Goshen, and head of student monitoring. He gives me the willies and I don’t know exactly why. He’s supposed to be the ally of the student body, but I don’t buy it. He ponderously climbs the steps to the stage, like he’s a bald-headed Moses and Gandalf and Dumbledore all in one, and turns around to face the student body.
“Students,” he intones in a stentorian voice, “What is the Goshen motto?”
“Finis est Origine!” shouts out a suck-up with enthusiasm. I sigh and Boy audibly groans.
“That is right. The End is the Beginning. And don’t you ever forget it. Your Goshen experience is your key to the door of opportunity,” the Dean sing-songs. He’s always going on and on about Free Will as the heritage of a Goshen education. But he never seems to acknowledge that systemic problems exist. I want to shout at him, “What do you know? You’re just an old white guy!” But I never do. At least not so far.
“Posterius est oreegeenay,” mutters Boy to me.
“His-us posterius est meus finis,” I whisper back.
“His-us posterius est enormous,” answers Boy. I stifle a laugh and Dean Abee stops talking to glare at us. Then I can’t help it and snort out loud.
Dean Abee squints at me, clears his throat and resumes his talk. I can detect a grim glitter in his eyes that hint to me that this is exactly the response he wants, exactly the kind of conflict he is angling for. He is playing me, and I fell into his game.