JACQUARIOUS

US & The World's "break room" would've been more appropriately termed an indoor amphitheater. Cushioned chairs lined the wall in alternating blocks of plushed silver and white, abstract paintings of a blood-red lake and an ink-smeared typewriter overhanging them. A flatscreen monitor protruded from the wall opposite me and Mrs. Cabot, its blackness seeming to meld with the shadow beneath it, thickened by the streams of sunshine intruding through the domed glass overhead.

It was beautiful, if not a bit gaudy; Mrs. Cabot didn't seem to notice.

The moment we were inside, she looped an arm around mine and thrusted us toward a decorative marble-black table—and toward the two men standing beside it.

"The donuts," Mrs. Cabot chirped, her tone jovial and careening, "are right behind these Sports Center old-timers hogging the snack station all to themselves."

Both men jumped instantly at her voice and twisted to face us.

"Old timers?" said the taller of the two, running a hand through the dirty blond spikes sprouting from his head. "Thought we at least still qualified as has-been clout chasers by now."

Both of the men laughed, the shorter reaching out his arms to wrap around Mrs. Cabot and pull her into a hug.

She squeezed back tightly, shutting her eyes with a smile. "It's good seeing you both." She turned to me and smiled again. "This is Jacquarious—he's a potential new recruit interested in an internship this summer."

The taller man took a step forward and extended a firm and burly hand. "Great to meet you, buddy. Name's Parker McQueen, and I'm US & The World's head sports analyst."

"And I'm Daniel," said the other guy, reaching out a hand to me as well. "When Parker's not dragging me all across the country to nab quotes from college recruiters, I sometimes manage to squeeze in a few hours as a talent-scout advisor."

"Like I said," Mrs. Cabot giggled. "Old-timers."

"Hey!" Daniel piped back. "I'll have you know college recruiting can be quite cutthroat, 'specially when it comes to snatching up the seniors—"

"Alright, keep a lid on it, Daniel," Parker laughed, nudging him before smiling back at Mrs. Cabot. "Two plates of the best donuts in the city, coming right up."

I chuckled as Parker turned to me with a grin, eyes drawn wide...until suddenly—unnervingly—that blistering warmth that'd lit up his face fell dark and cold for the most fleeting of instants. A peeling away, it seemed, almost as of a dam breached ever so briefly by a weeping stream—then in a fraction of a second, it was gone.

As if by the flip of an electrified switch, he was smiling again and turning to stare dolefully at Mrs. Cabot. He was grabbing two plates from the table of donuts; he was handing them our way—my way.

He was sliding an arm around Daniel's shoulder before waving goodbye to me and Mrs. Cabot as we set off on the rest of our tour of US & The World. He was shouting some playful warning about not letting that "witchy old lady" turn me to stone in the printing room.

And as I tilted my head, angling it over my shoulder, he was staring after me with narrowed eyes, with a thin and menacing scowl that lingered on even after I'd turned away. I followed Mrs. Cabot inside the suddenly icy interior of a silver elevator, reached out to press the round floor button bulging from the black panel.

The ding of the doors tinkled through the air, shivering in time with the ice-cold stare of Parker McQueen.

****

The printing room wasn't far from the sixth floor's elevator. Brush-streaked walls speckled with ashen paint spanned the hall from the point where we emerged, trailing us all the way to the fourth door on the left.

Mrs. Cabot strode inside with a cheerful smile, welcoming me into the sprawling expanse as the whir of black ink stamped onto newsprint echoed out its rhythmic beat.

"Whoa," I breathed. "It's...it's even bigger than I thought it'd be."

All around us, machines of sleek and silvery metal bucked and chirruped, sputtering out a melody all their own as parts clacked against one another and smooth, off-white pages spewed from an endless array of mechanical maws.

Overhead, circular collections of thin lights were dispersed regularly, hanging from the ceiling in uneven bundles. They cast their brightness against the clear glass partitions dividing the printing floor and the bustle of machines that brought it to life.

"There're so many parts," I whispered. "It's...beautiful."

Mrs. Cabot giggled next to me. "You almost sound like Chaucer," she said. "Though I suppose a printing room is a bit different than staring head on at the portrait of human nature—all its faults, all its triumphs—and trying to paint a caricature." She gulped once, glanced over at me. "My apologies, dear. I'm rambling again." She took a bite of her donut, wiped at her mouth with a napkin.

"Oh, it's...it's fine," I said. "Honestly, I kind of like Chaucer."

She quirked an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Yeah, but...only to a point."

Mrs. Cabot's lips twisted into a wry smile. "And just what point might that be?"

I chuckled. "Well, if we look at the Canterbury Tales, we definitely see Chaucer's eye for pointing out inconsistency in human nature. But it just seems like sometimes, he...stops. Like he won't go as far as to say something is bad. He just says that's humanity and that we have to accept it."

Mrs. Cabot sighed and stared off into space. "I hear you. Really, I do." Her eyes glistened with the twinkle of the lights above our heads. "Change," she whispered. "Real change—the kind of thing that only happens once you face what you've been ignoring." She turned back to me. "Chaucer writes about people, writes about their shortcomings. But if I'm hearing you correctly, you don't think simply writing about them is enough. Sometimes, writing it out just makes it more real...more human."

I nodded slowly.

"And sometimes," she mused. "Sometimes the very reason a thing persists is precisely because it's so vile, so wicked...so human." She stared earnestly at me, amber flecks glistening in her smooth, coppery eyes.

"Yeah," I managed. "It's hard to put words around it sometimes, but...yeah."

Mrs. Cabot smiled. "I think I'm starting to get why you wrote that essay—why you were able to write that essay. And why it was so powerful." She shook her head. "You've really got something special, Jacquarious. A gift, and one I can't say I've ever seen before." She sighed. "I just hope our little field trip today hasn't poisoned you against it all."

I shook my head. "Not at all. In fact, if I'm being honest, it's...kinda the opposite."

Her jaw dropped. "What?"

"I mean, yeah, that August guy should probably down a few chill pills. But I really can't blame him for being passionate about his job." I smiled back at her. "I haven't been here long, but it seems like everybody cares a lot about the product you guys put out. And that can be really hard to find. You've got a solid team—not a lot of people can say that."

Mrs. Cabot grinned, shaking her head. "You're right," she said. "US & The World is one in a million." She shut her eyes, angling her head to the left. "And so are you."

****

The ride back to Goldengate Academy breezed by as Mrs. Cabot spilled more details about the perks of being an intern for the paper—free flights, five-star hotels, unbelievable clearance to get in just about anywhere. She was laying it on thick; that's for sure.

Still, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at least a little bit excited. Here I was, only two days into the start of the spring semester, and I'd somehow managed to grab the attention of the biggest newspaper in the nation.

It felt good—it felt really, really good. Almost good enough to make me all but forget what'd happened Sunday.

Almost.

When we made it to Goldengate, Mrs. Cabot dropped me off by the entrance to the gym, a side area I could cut through without passing by the front office. Even if one of the other teachers saw me coming in, it'd look like I was heading back to the main building after Phys. Ed., not sneaking back onto school grounds after a foray into the world of the printed press.

Mrs. Cabot waved a furtive goodbye to me, then doubled back onto the street and headed for the teachers' parking lot. I slid inside the backdoor to the gym and sprinted through the locker rooms, arriving finally at the main school building.

Easing past the entrance, I entered the hallway on tiptoes, knowing that the bell for sixth period would ring any minute, flooding the halls with students departing the lunchroom and scurrying to class.

I just had to keep myself hidden until then, had to make sure any wandering teachers didn't happen to spot me as I lingered.

My eyes darted nervously, passing the icy glass windows to my left that sparkled with the sun's rays, tracing the auric display case of Goldengate Mathlete trophies and music awards, flitting briefly to the zigzagging vertical lights reaching from the ceiling, and finally landing at the edge of the staircase meters to my right.

I sighed, content with my hundred-eighty-degree sweep of the hall that had spotted no teachers, no echoing footsteps to break the tentative silence. I angled my head back to the middle of the hall when—Hold on...what?

I flicked my eyes back to the right, back to the foot of the staircase whose marbled railing bore the sheen of the overhead lights without reflecting it. On the bottom step, near the very tip of the finished white wood, a solitary dot of red peeked across the way as I stared back at it.

There's—there's no way. I shivered, hazarded a single step closer with my head lowered to the ground as—What!?Another tiny circle of red shone up at me, mere inches from my foot.

Shivering to lift my gaze, I noticed for the first time the trail of crimson dots between where I stood and where that single spot of scarlet still waited on the steps.

I felt my breathing leaden, the air thinning all around me as I dragged my feet ahead, pushed onward along the dotted trail.

I stopped at the staircase, crouched down in terror at the final speck of red no larger than a teardrop adorning the front of the bottom step. And upon that step, flat against its horizontal top, a single card of plastic smeared in crimson sat undisturbed.

A driver's license.

A likeness trapped inside a rectangle, smattered with strokes of blood for all to see.

A face—one I knew all too well—grinned up at me from the license with a static, unflinching glare.

My eyes bolted to the name, confirming the horror already pulsing in tendrils through my chest.

I could barely say it, could barely even think it as my mouth fell agape—as fear trembled from between my lips.

"H-he's...dead."