Steve and I live in a cramped, fourth-floor, walk-up apartment in an almost derelict building in Zone C on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Our neighborhood used to be called Chinatown. And I used to go to a pretty okay local school. But last week I had to switch to a new school uptown when my new age chip didn’t turn up—to avoid dangerous questions from my teachers.

          Today wasn’t a great day. I feel like I’m going to throw up. If I begin, I’ll keep heaving until there’s nothing left to throw up but air. So I’m doing my best to hold on and keep the contents of my stomach in my stomach. We had a random inspection during science class today. School inspections don’t happen often these days, not like back in the beginning. All last week I’d kept my head down and my mouth shut to avoid drawing attention to myself. It’s far too early to figure out who is friend and who is not except for that big, obnoxious troglodyte, Shaun Donnelly. He saunters around as if he owns the place, mouthing off government slogans like Lose the Latinos! I doubt if it would even occur to Shaun to think for himself. Maybe he doesn’t think at all. Troll. My primary objective this past week has been to stay as far away from him as possible.

          Today, the science teacher, Mr. Wakely, told us that we were going to learn about different types of clouds. I figured that he was talking about computing clouds. But up on the large electronic whiteboard, he showed us images of real clouds: puffy cumulus clouds, thin, wispy cirrus clouds and others in a whole range of colors, not just white or gray. I never realized how interesting clouds could be, which is ironic because my mom used to say that I walk around with my head in them.

          Mr. Wakely’s slideshow was pretty cool. Too cool. I was so mesmerized that for a few, brief minutes I forgot everything, who I was, where I was, President Trent, the Exclusion Order, running, hiding, the Underground, all of it. Stupid. Stupid. Stay alert at all time—that’s Underground Rule 101 stuff. The high-pitched squealing sound of the school inspection siren surprised me so much that I banged my ankle violently against the leg of my desk. The pain was intense, but I managed to avoid making any noise by biting down hard on my bottom lip. It’s a useful tip I picked up during training: distract yourself from pain by a different kind of pain. I couldn’t afford to appear nervous. Nobody could.

          Mr. Wakely wasn’t nervous; he was irritated. Everyone in at least the first six rows heard him grumble to the teacher’s assistant:

“How are we supposed to teach these kids when they barge in here whenever they feel like it?”

That wasn’t very astute of Mr. Wakely. One of the kids in the class might report him. He could lose his job. But I made a mental note:

Wakely, Robert: Ally (Potential).

Mr. Wakely switched off the whiteboard and walked to the door of the classroom, his hands in his pockets. He opened the door, stuck his head out briefly, and then pulled it back in.

“All right everyone, listen up!” He took off his chunky, square glasses and rubbed them absent-mindedly with a scrap of yellow cloth so dusty that it made the lenses dirtier. “We can expect our friends from the Deportation of Latinos Agency to be joining us very shortly. After class I’ll post a link to a quiz on what we’ve learned today. Submit your answers online tonight. No excuses.”

          Some of the kids groaned, more out of habit than genuine protest. Mr. Wakely held up his hand. “Okay, okay, keep the noise level down, the DLA will be through that door any minute.” He propped the glasses back on his nose. I would have slid them into a drawer. Hardly anyone wears glasses anymore. The DLA is suspicious of anybody who hasn’t availed of the free, government-sponsored eye laser surgery. Don’t dare to be different.

          Mr. Wakely faced the class. Despite the grimy lenses, I could see his eyes twinkling. He drummed his fingers on his desk to catch our attention. “If any of you are in the Underground,” he announced, “this might be a good time to slip out the back window and take your chances down the fire escape.”  He winked, like right at me, and turned around as the class laughed at his joke. I laughed too—on the outside.

          Without moving my head, I whipped my eyes furtively around. Nobody seemed to be paying any attention to me. At the top of the classroom, Mr. Wakely was having trouble loading his tablet into an already crammed canvas Bloomingdale’s bag. I exhaled slowly. I was being paranoid. The wink wasn’t meant especially for me. But it was annoying. Not funny. The DLA always posts agents outside during an inspection. Everyone knows that. In fact, the best way to practically guarantee capture is to try to exit via a fire escape.

          I put my tablet in my backpack and concentrated on trying to look bored like the other kids. I slid a stick of gum out of my pocket. It’s easier to look nonchalant when you’re chewing gum. Bet Shaun Donnelly is enjoying this, I thought bitterly. I risked sneaking a glance at him, expecting to see a smirk, but he was leaning back in his chair, openly dewaxing his left ear with an index finger, and looking as indifferent as everyone else.

          Two low-level DLA agents, in their dark gray-green uniforms with the ferret emblem on the left sleeves, entered the classroom, followed by a short, stocky man with a huge, flabby belly … and a miniscule camera. I stiffened. An ordinary inspection is bad enough but this one was going to be filmed for a training module for this year’s batch of DLA recruits, the class of 2025. Inspections don’t come worse than that . . . unless they are personally supervised by a top-level agent.

          Behind the fat guy with the camera stood a tall, thin man whom I instantly recognized from the pictures plastered all over the net and the electronic billboards on Times Square—Eric Rienham, the newly-appointed chief of the DLA for the New York Metropolitan Area. Big job. He’d been hand-picked by President Trent himself. I’d caught Rienham being interviewed a few weeks ago on the Entertainment System. “I view my job as a matter of simple logistics,” he’d said in a monotone voice, “implementing efficient methods of disposal.” In real life, in the classroom, he looked younger, and even more intimidating. He was immaculately dressed in an old-school, pinstriped, pale gray, three-piece suit. It wasn’t the kind of suit you buy at a Zone C discount store with a clip-on tie and a disposable razor thrown in. His nose was on the beaky side. His hair was longish and white with a hint of tobacco color. I bet he smoked cigarettes even though that’s illegal in the whole state. His pale face was like a fake, newly reproduced statue; one without any nicks or cracks, as if no pimple had ever dared to blemish it.

          Mr. Wakely strolled over to Rienham and greeted him casually, his grimy, yellow rag half-hanging out of his pocket. He began to make some kind of polite, small talk. Rienham smiled; a thin imitation of a smile without showing any teeth. He raised a finger to his lips. That’s all he did; one little shushing gesture, no sound, but Mr. Wakely looked bewildered . . . and a little scared. He trailed off whatever he’d been saying and took a couple of small, uneasy, sideways steps.

          Rienham walked briskly past him to the top of the classroom, and stood there in front of Mr. Wakely’s desk staring at us, still smiling. It was somehow impossible not to look back at him. His eyes were mismatched: one, a brilliant yellow-green, and the other, so dark brown that it was almost black. Those mutant eyes were so freakily alive that they looked as if they had a life-force of their own. I got the feeling that if Rienham happened to be . . .  I don’t know, assassinated or something; his eyes would simply pop themselves out of his skull and function independently.

          I braced myself for him to begin the usual speech that inspectors made about fulfilling your economic duty to report suspected UPMs (Undocumented Persons Minors), blah blah blah. But he didn’t make a sound. He just stood there, watching us watching him. It’s hard to explain how creepy his silence was. I heard Shaun Donnelly clear his throat nervously, and he’s Irish-American right down to the non-existent tips of his raw, bitten-down fingernails—he didn’t have a thing to worry about.

          The silence stretched on and on, like the endless unravelling of an infinite coil of wire. You could almost touch it, that steel of silence; so tough and unyielding and menacing. The tension in the room was unbearable, like a gathering of typhoon clouds. Someone has got to scream. Someone. Scream. Make a sound. Anything. Make the silence stop. I remembered my training. Focus on my breathing. Breathe. In. Out. Breathe In. And Out. Not too deep. Not too shallow. Don’t gulp the air in. That’s it. All I had to do was breathe.

          Rienham began to pace up and down the aisles. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. I kept my eyes fixed downwards on an etching of a bat someone had laboriously scratched into my desk. The carving didn’t look much like a bat, more like a symbol, like an L leaning up against an A. LA. Los Angeles?

          Rienham kept pacing. Up and down. Up and down. Even strides. His shoes must have been embedded with the latest Nike Ghost technology because there was no sound of footsteps; just the painfully loud, terrifying silence. As he reached the top of the classroom, there was a small garbled sound followed by the reek of something familiar, like cat pee. Rienham stopped and turned around slowly. He smiled again, the same thin smile without opening his mouth. Everyone glanced around to see what he was looking at. Behind me, on the right side of the room, a pale yellow puddle had formed under Melanie Anderson’s desk, in between her wobbling, soft, white legs. Her socks and shoes looked damp.

          Rienham snapped his fingers and the two agents standing by the doorway, came and pulled Melanie to her feet. She was crying soundlessly; big, gloopy tears sliding down her face and diving off her chin into the pool of urine. Her blonde ponytail twitched in rhythm with her heaving chest. For the benefit of the camera, one of the agents patted her shoulder in an avuncular manner and handed her a pocket-pack of tissues. She seemed too dazed to know what to do with it. She clutched the cellophane packet loosely in her left hand. The agents started to lead her out of the class-room, one supporting her on each side, closely followed by the cameraman. As they walked past my desk, the packet of tissues slipped from Melanie’s hand. My right arm sprang forward of its own accord to pick it up for her. So dumb! I didn’t realize my mistake until I’d already stretched out my hand. If I appeared sympathetic to Melanie in any way, I too would find myself being marched out by the agents. They were waiting to see what I would do. I forced myself to keep my hand moving. I picked up the packet and threw it in the direction of the garbage can with a casual flick of my wrist and a yawn—a small yawn, not overdone. I didn’t look at Melanie. Why couldn’t she have held on for just a few more minutes? I felt so angry with her. More than angry; I hated her, I hated myself more. The agents pushed Melanie forward. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

          I could feel Rienham’s creepy, laser-like eyes resting on me. Everyone in the classroom was staring at me. One, Two, Three, Eyes on Me. One, Two, Eyes on You! What did they see? I tried to think it through calmly. I’m a little on the short side for my actual age, fourteen, but only slightly below average height for a thirteen-year-old. Average is good. I’ve got short, straight, brown hair, worn with a side-part like almost all of the other boysj. Fine. A few freckles dot my nose. Bonus. My skin is a light-brown color, which could be a sign of an early summer tan . . . or of Latino heritage. Not good. What else? Clothes. I was dressed in jeans and a blue t-shirt. Blue! Light-blue, the same shade as my eyes. Latino eyes are typically brown. I forced myself to look at Rienham, keeping my eyes open wide and innocent-looking. I carved my lips into the confident, knowing smile of an insider. Rienham’s yellow-green eye, which had been pulsating, now blinked lazily.  He adjusted the cufflink on his left sleeve and left the room. The cameraman and the agents followed him, nudging Melanie along. She didn’t resist. She was on her way to exile. And it was always a one-way trip.

          None of us would ever know Melanie’s story: who she was, where she came from, whether she’d beat the odds to survive in exile . . . we’d never even learn her name, her real name. My name is Mateo Rivera and this is my story. If you’re reading it, I’m almost certainly dead.

Read on in December, 2015.