Tom’s dad, Neil, usually saved enough money to pay for a roof over their heads and some food at the gift shop. But some days he got totally cleaned out at the poker tables. It happened more and more in recent years as the last of his luck deserted him. When Neil squandered their money, and Tom couldn’t find any sucker to bet against him in the VR parlors, they had to skip on small luxuries like hotel rooms. They ended up in a park or at a bus station or lying on benches at the train station.
Now with Ms. Falmouth and his entire class watching him, Tom tried to think of an excuse he’d never used before to explain why he’d missed the last ten days. He’d missed school so many times, he’d repeated himself a couple times by accident. He’d already lied about going to the funerals of all his grandparents, and even a couple great-grandparents, and there were only so many times he could say he “fell down a well” or “got lost in the woods” or “got hit in the head and got amnesia” before even he thought he sounded like a colossal idiot.
Today, he tried, “There was this massive cyberattack on all the local VR parlors. Russo-Chinese hackers, you know? The Department of Homeland Security came in and had to interview everyone in a ten-mile radius. I couldn’t even access the internet.”
Ms. Falmouth just shook her head. “Don’t waste your breath, Tom.”
Tom dropped into a seat, irrationally disappointed. It had been a good lie this time, too.
The avatars throughout the classroom sniggered at him, the way they always did, at Tom the loser who never knew what assignments were due, who never turned in his homework, who couldn’t even manage to show up at an online class most days. He tuned his classmates out and occupied himself with twirling a pencil, which was trickier in VR than most people realized. The sensors of most standard-issue wired gloves had a strange lag time, and Tom figured honing his dexterity with them could only help him in future games.
He heard a whisper from beside him. “I liked your excuse.”
Tom threw a careless glance toward the girl next to him. She must’ve joined the class sometime in the last two weeks. Her avatar was a gorgeous brunette with striking yellow-brown eyes. “Thanks. Nice avatar.”
“I’m Heather.” She flashed him a smile. “And this isn’t an avatar.”
Sure it isn’t, Tom thought. People didn’t look like that in real life unless they were celebrities. But he nodded like he believed her. “I’m Tom. And believe it or not, this”—he gestured to himself like he was proud of how very handsome he was—“isn’t an avatar, either.”
Heather giggled, because his avatar looked just like him, with acne and scrawny limbs and all. It definitely wasn’t an image anyone would use to impress people online.
Ms. Falmouth turned back to face them. “Tom, Heather, are you done interrupting me, or do you need more time for your conversation?”
“Sorry,” Tom said. “We’re all through.”
Tom hadn’t seen eye to eye with Ms. Falmouth since he’d shown up for the first day of school a few years ago as Lord Krull from the game Celtic Quest. She’d yelled at him in front of everyone for being insolent, like he had done it as part of some elaborate scheme to mock her class. He’d just liked Lord Krull from Celtic Quest, that was all.
From then on, Tom always came to class as himself. He never signed on to the internet without an avatar if he could help it. It felt like he’d left his real skin behind, showing up at Rosewood as the same ugly, pale-eyed, and blond-haired Thomas Raines who tailed behind his dad in the real world. Never mind that he didn’t believe for a second that the new girl sitting next to him really looked like her beautiful brunette avatar, and Serge Leon, in the back corner, was way too blustering to be a hulking six-footer in real life. He was probably four foot something and fat.
But Ms. Falmouth didn’t seem to care about them. Whenever Tom was around, her radar was trained on him.
“Our subject’s the current war, Tom. Perhaps you can contribute to our discussion. What is an offshored conflict?”
His thoughts flickered to what he’d seen in the news and on the internet, the clips of the ships fighting in space, controlled remotely by the top-secret combatants identified only by their call signs. “An offshored conflict is a war fought somewhere other than Earth. It’s in space or on another planet.”
“And the sky is blue, and the sun rises in the east. I’ll need much more than the blatantly obvious.”
Tom stopped twirling the virtual pencil and tried to concentrate. “Modern wars aren’t fought by people. I mean, they’re kind of fought by people, because people on Earth control mechanized drones remotely, but the machines do the actual fighting. If our machines don’t get demolished by Russo-Chinese machines, our country wins the battle.”
“And who is involved in the current conflict, Tom?”
“The whole world. That’s why it’s called World War III.” She seemed to be waiting for more, so Tom ticked off the major players on his virtual fingers: “India and America are allies, and the Euro-Australian block is aligned with us. Russia and China are allies, and they’re supported by the African states and the South American Federation. The Coalition of Multinationals, the twelve most powerful corporations in the world, is split down the middle between our two sides. And … yeah. That’s about it.”
That was pretty much all he knew about the war. He wasn’t sure what else she wanted. He couldn’t list all the tiny little countries allied with the two sides if he tried, and he doubted anyone else in the room could, either. There was a reason Rosewood was a reform school—most of its students couldn’t cut it in a real, building one.
“Would you like to explain one notable characteristic about this offshored conflict, as opposed to wars in ages past?”
“No?” he tried hopefully.
“I wasn’t really asking. Now answer the question.”
Tom started twirling his pencil again. This was how Ms. Falmouth operated. She questioned him until he ran through all his knowledge, messed up, and looked like an idiot. This time he’d give it to her. “Dunno. Sorry.”
Ms. Falmouth sighed as though she expected nothing more, and moved on to her next victim. “Heather, you two look to be making fast friends. If you’re talking during class on your first day here, maybe you can list a notable characteristic for Tom.”
Heather gave Tom a quick, sidelong look, then answered, “By going to war on other planets, and avoiding fights on Earth, we resolve issues through violence, but we avoid most of the consequences of traditional warfare such as debilitating injuries, human deaths, disruption of infrastructure, and environmental contamination. That’s four notable characteristics. Do you want me to list more than that, Ms. Falmouth?”
Ms. Falmouth was silent for several seconds, perhaps stunned at how readily Heather had answered the question. “That’ll quite do, Heather. Very well articulated. Offshored conflicts are practical socially as well as ecologically.” She strode to the board. “I’d like you all to think of some ways the nature of conflict has shifted the consequences we face....”
Heather took the opportunity to whisper to Tom, “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”