MR RODRIGUEZ (It's all his fault)

I heard a blaring noise and at once I woke up from my sleep. It was one like a fire alarm, so I rushed out of my room, and I saw Archer outside to, looking just as puzzled as I was. I banged on Oliver and Chloe's door, "Hey! Wake up! There's an alarm!"

Oliver came out of the room drowsily, and glared at me annoyed. "That's just the wake up alarm, stupid."

The way he spit out those words made my blood boil. I had thought that in this godforsaken place, at least I'd have some seniors who could guide me and help me, but they were just a bunch of messed up adults!

I wanted to say something back, but Archer did it first, "How were we to know?! Who keeps an alarm like that anyways?!"

Oliver looked pissed and like he was going to lash out any second. Just then, Chloe appeared, and she put her hand on his shoulder. Oliver instantly calmed down at her touch, and slammed the door in our faces.

Archer scoffed, and stormed back into his room. Oliver and Chloe had each other, and I was left alone in the hall, still kind of stumped about the entire situation. I heard the announcement from the loudspeaker, "Please get ready for your classes in thirty minutes."

I walked back into my room, and took my school clothes from my suitcases. I still hadn't unpacked my suitcases, but I didn't have the nerve to call this place home.

I took a shower in my bathroom, and got dressed. "Report downstairs in two minutes." The loudspeaker blared. Oliver and Chloe got out of their room, still in their night clothes, and started heading downstairs. Archer and I, however, were wearing the uniform, with its crisp edges and perfectly fitted shoulders.

I had worn my dress, and Archer was wearing a maroon shirt of the same material as my dress, and long black pants. We headed downstairs as well, I was a bit hesitant, but I didn't want to know the consequences of ill behavior. I didn't want to know what they did to Oliver when the white coat people dragged him somewhere. I didn't want to know why he screamed.

The chancellor was waiting for us downstairs. "Don't you have other places to be?" Oliver drawled.

"Yes, I'm afraid I do. So I have to make this short. Here are your schedules from now on." He said handing us a piece of paper each. I peered over at Archer's schedule, and he sighed and tilted it so I could stop craning  my neck to see it. All our classes were same. But we had different classes than what we had had at Building 1.

The chancellor dismissed us and we went to our next classes. This building was more of a maze than the last one, and it took ten minutes to find room 208.

I nervously pushed open the door of the class, and walked in. The teacher looked annoyed, and he wasn't like Mr. Davis or Mr. Coleridge. He seemed younger and more classified and supreme.

As soon as he noticed us enter the classroom he said, "You're late."

"Sorry?" I said quite shamelessly.

"Kids keep getting more ignorant day by day." He grunted. "So what is so special about you kids that I have to teach you?"

None of us uttered a word. He rolled his eyes at us, and told us that we were a waste of his time.

"Look, we didn't ask to be here!" I snapped.

He looked furious at my sudden outburst, but calmed himself. "Whatever. I'm Sam Rodriguez, your mentor for this year. So today, you will have to give a few tests, so I know your capabilities."

He went out of the classroom to get our tests, and Archer asked me, "Do you want to purposely flunk the tests?"

If we flunk them, we might get sent back! "Yes!" I said.

Mr. Rodriguez came back with a thick bundle of tests. Archer looked at me, You know what to do.

I gave him a quick thumbs up and looked at the paper that Mr. Rodriguez had given me. Languages? Again?

The paper was a mixed bag of a variety of languages. It was a little hard, but I had to answer the questions wrong anyways so I took my time answering the paper, giving wrong answers that should be applauded at. There was a section of Russian and Mandarin. I was about to write the wrong answers, but then I realised that if Mr. Rodriguez found out about our previous marks, he'd know that we'd failed on purpose.

I looked over at Archer and saw that he was almost finished. I managed to grab his attention, and I signed with my hands, Do not flunk Russian and Mandarin.

He gave me a puzzled look and signed, What?

Do not flunk- I signed, when Mr. Rodriguez noticed that we were making gestures at each other. "What's going on here?" He asked.

"Nothing- I'm done with my paper." Archer said, handing in his paper.

Mr. Rodriguez looked at us suspiciously, but took Archer's paper and started correcting it. The paper was full of red pen marks and crosses. I handed in my paper shortly after, and he announced that we were the dumbest kids he'd ever seen. Archer had gotten 1/100, and I had gotten 12/100. I only had Mandarin and Russian correct, and Archer got one mark for spelling his name correctly.

"Something does not seem right here." Mr. Rodriguez said, narrowing his eyes. I shrugged. "Wait here." He said and left the room.

I turned to Archer, "We've already given Russian and Mandarin tests, if he checks those, he'll know that we were faking flunking!"

"Oh shit." Archer said.

We were deliberating about what to do, when Mr. Rodriguez walked in with Mr. Davis. He knew what marks we'd gotten in the language test conducted by Mr. Davis. We also knew we were goners.

"Mr. Davis has given me some delightful news," Mr. Rodriguez said, "Both of you are quite proficient in Russian and Mandarin. Then why is it that, Mr. Johnson, you failed those languages as well?"

I gulped. Archer looked confident and tall, but I could see that his eyes glinted his panic. I quickly came up with a lie. I signed to him, Gaslight him. Yes, I know, not the best course of action, but right now, if we got caught, we'd have whatever punishment Oliver had.

Archer apparently didn't recognise the sign for gaslight. I cleared my throat. "Archer? Proficient? More like useless."

Archer shot me a glare, clearly not getting what I was talking about. "The tests we gave?" I continued, "I signed him the answers during those. That's what I was doing today, but then you nearly caught us. The only language that nincompoop knows is English."

"What rubbish are you talking about?" Mr. Davis asked aghast.

I did a very convincing chuckle, "I'm only telling the truth. I know Russian and Mandarin, and Archer, here, is a leech of my talent."

Archer seemed to have understood what I was doing. He did his best to act nervous and anxious about what he didn't know, and Mr. Rodriguez turned to him. "Is this true, Mr. Johnson?"

"Uhm," He awarely fidgeted, "Y-yes sir, sorry, so sorry."

This was playing exactly how I needed it to play. I was going to open my lying mouth to finish the conversation, but Mr. Rodriguez cut me to it.

"How exactly do you sign to him in different languages?" Oh fuck. That was one of the things I hadn't come to yet. "That's easy." I shrugged.

"The workshop I'd done about sign languages didn't just teach ASL. They also taught RSL and CSL, and since those were the only languages I knew, I learned that too." I lied pathetically.

"And if Mr. Johnson does not know either of the spoken languages, how will he know Russian Sign Language, and Chinese Sign Language?" Mr. Rodriguez retorted.

I closed my eyes for half a millisecond. I felt a hand on my shoulder. Warm tingles engulfed my body, and I got my shit together. I was about to admit to the entire ordeal. "You know my family, Mr. Rodriguez."

Mr. Rodriguez looked shocked. Archer continued, "It is the most powerful family in Assassin. To ensure its secure future, us- the future, we're required to know many things. This was one of the things I learned."

I felt relieved. Archer had done something useful. I smiled at him, and he smiled back. "Ok." Mr. Rodriguez said, and didn't put up much more of a fight. Archer's family must be really powerful, I thought. How could he get away with partially threatening a teacher?

I pushed my thoughts away, and focused on the second test in front of me. Decoding codes. Easy.

As I looked at the questions, the answers flew into my brain. Wait. Are we still flunking? Archer was seated at the other end of the room, so there was no scope of cheating. I thought I'd wait for Archer to complete his test.

Archer submitted it in the next fifteen minutes, while I doodled on the corner of my page, waiting to see if he'd gotten good marks or had failed.

"Very good, Mr. Johnson. You got 94/100!" Mr. Rodriguez announced. I wrote down the correct answers which I'd already worked out in my mind, and handed in my paper to Mr. Rodriguez.

"Excellent, Ms. Collins, you have gotten full marks." He smiled a crooked smile at me.

The next paper. Just looking at the questions made me gag, they were questions on how to kill. Being raised in a Genius family, I had no idea what the answers were, but I guess I basic knowledge of what I'd studied in my biology book could work, if these questions were merely hypothetical.

I could hear the snap of Samuel's neck as I attempted the first question. I glanced over at Archer, and he was already done with the first page of the test. Of course he knew this. He's made for this. Not me, I don't belong here.

Q17. If the assassination takes place on an aeroplane, where is the best place to dispose of the body? (This question is one of the less horrible ones, I can't disclose the other questions)

How the hell was I supposed to know that?! My eyes were almost brimming with tears, and I didn't know why. It was probably because I was not used to not knowing stuff and less because of the horrid questions.

The second I saw Archer submit his paper, something in my snapped. I got up, disposed of my paper in the trash can, and I left the classroom.

I didn't look back, but I saw Archer catching up with me in the corner of my eyes, and I ran back to my room and locked the door. I don't know why, but I was done with this nonsense. I don't like not knowing stuff!

Archer knocked on my door. "Aurora? What happened? Are you okay?"

"No! I'm not okay, Archer. I don't want to be here, I don't want to do this! I want to go to Genius Academy, coming here itself was a mistake. I can't do this." I admitted, and started sobbing.

"I didn't ask for this either. I had no choice but to come here. Hey, wait. Are you crying?" He said through the door.

The amount of concern in his voice startled me, and I hurriedly wiped away the tears dripping from my eyes. "No."

"Okay." He said. I thought he'd left, and I started violently thrashing things in my room. After five minutes, I took a sip of water, caught my breath, and again began destroying the room.

I almost didn't hear the commotion outside. "-her room!" Archer's voice yelled.

"Please step aside Mr. Johnson, we must take her to the chamber." A person said.

What the fuck? What was happening? I went to open my door, but decided against it. I cowered back, and sat on my bed, one of the only things not broken.

"Leave Aurora alone. I mean it." Archer retorted.

The other voice said, "Sir, we mean you no harm. If you don't step away right now, there will be consequences for you."

Consequences?! I didn't want Archer to suffer any consequences! I opened the door, and passed Archer. "Aurora, don't do this. Please." The pain in his voice was oblivious to me, and I ignored him.

"This is my mess. Don't pull Archer into this." I said, and the men in white coats whisked me away to a chamber. A torture chamber, I think.

"AURORA!!" Archer's voice echoed in the hallways. It was also the last thing I heard before they injected something in my arm, and I immediately lost consciousness.