Liam raised his eyebrows. “Their what?”
Hershey chewed on her lip, thinking. “They know they’re murderers, right? So they don’t expect to be saved. They expect whoever is deciding to save the Nobel winners instead. So if the opposite happens . . . I dunno.” She sounded self-conscious. “Maybe it changes them, and maybe other negative-utility-value people are changed just hearing about it. Maybe they’re redeemed somehow. And maybe the net effect on society is greater than if you’d saved the good guys.”
“Or maybe they’ll just kill more people because, you know, they’re murderers.” Liam said it like Hershey’s idea was the dumbest in the world.
“You’re a jackass,” Hershey snapped. She turned to me. “What do you think?”
“I think the whole premise is flawed. First of all, it’s a completely unrealistic scenario. Why are all these murderers on a train in the first place? Where are they going? And why is there a bus full of Nobel Prize winners—I mean, c’mon, really? They’re on a bus? Stuck on the track?”
“Just because it’s an unlikely scenario doesn’t make it a useless hypothetical,” Liam replied. “The point is to see how you’d reason through the possible outcomes.”
“But I have no control over the outcomes,” I argued. “And I never would! The idea that I could be sitting in a room somewhere with a button that would let me decide who lives and who dies—”
“People make those kinds of decisions all the time,” Liam said.
“Oh, yeah? Who are these button pushers? I’d like to meet one,” I said sarcastically.
Liam gave me a patronizing look. “That hypo on your exam, the people on the dock. Where’d it happen in real life?”
“Huh?”
“Tarsus bases her sims on real-life events,” he replied. “That’s her big pitch for why they’re so useful.” As he said it, I remembered Tarsus telling us that on the first day of class. I’d forgotten. Somewhere in the back of my mind I heard the sound of those little kids screaming as their bodies were blown to bits. Those were real kids somewhere? My stomach clenched and unclenched like a fist. Why had I been so quick to abandon them? So what if their utility value was the lowest on that dock? They were children.
It took some effort to put the image of that exploding dock out of my mind after that, but I managed to do it long enough to take my last two midterms. By the time 4:30 rolled around, my brain felt like oatmeal.
“To you!” Hershey shouted when I opened our door, a bottle of sparkling cider in her hand. “For saving my ass.”
I smiled and stepped inside. “I take it you passed?”
“An A and two Bs,” she said proudly. “As long as I didn’t totally bomb lit yesterday, I’m golden.” She poured some cider for me, and we clinked cups and drank.
“No stolen champagne?” I teased.
“New leaf,” Hershey replied, refilling her cup. “From now on I will only pilfer nonalcoholic beverages.” We giggled and sipped our cider. “Seriously, though. Thank you.” Hershey’s eyes were shining as she looked at me. “I didn’t deserve your help,” she said.
“Hersh, that’s not—”
She held up her hand, stopping me. “I didn’t. And had it been me, I would’ve let you fail. And don’t say I wouldn’t have, because trust me, I would’ve. So now I owe you, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to make it up to you. Okay?” Her eyes were earnest, almost pleading, as if it were important to her that I accept.
I nodded.
She smiled. “Good. I’ll start by doing your makeup.” She set the bottle down on her desk and gestured to her chair. “Sit.”
15
VILLAGE PIZZA WAS PACKED when we walked in. Rachel and Izzy had gotten there early and scored a booth by the window. We shrugged out of our coats and slid in next to them. “We’ve deemed this a no-thinking weekend,” Izzy announced. “So we’re auto-ordering.”
“No argument here,” Hershey replied, handing Rachel her Gemini. “My brain is fried.” Rachel touched each of our handhelds to the scanner on the wall, and a few seconds later our order popped up on the screen. “Anybody good here?” Hershey asked, craning her neck to scan the crowded room.
“Eh,” Rachel replied with a disinterested shrug. “Mostly townies.”
“Your boyfriend is here,” Hershey announced. I thought she was talking to Izzy, but she was looking at me. I followed her gaze. North was at the take-out counter, paying cash for a large pizza. I quickly looked away.
“You mean your boyfriend,” I corrected, keeping my voice light.
Rachel turned to look. “He’s the guy?”
Hershey made a face. “He is most definitely not the guy. But he has a thing for Rory. You should see the way he flirts with her.”
Annoyance shot through me. I didn’t want to rock the boat with Hershey since we were getting along so well, but this charade was a little much.
“If you don’t want to talk about your hookup, that’s fine,” I said evenly. “But please don’t make crap like that up just to cover it up.”
Hershey blinked, stunned. “Wait, you think I’m hooking up with North?”
She looked so surprised that I faltered. “Aren’t you?”
“No!” she replied. Then what were you doing at his apartment with your dress off? I almost fired back. But I didn’t want to let on that I knew, or explain why I was at his apartment that night. Not in front of Rachel and Izzy.
“Two Hansen’s, a lemonade, and a diet Z Cola,” our waitress said, passing out our drinks. Instead of putting my napkin on the table, she handed it to me, folded once in half. I noticed the handwriting inside right away.
I need to talk to you. It’s important.—N. P.
I quickly crumpled up the napkin and shoved it into my pocket. The other girls were discussing the ingredients lists on their soda cans and didn’t notice. I turned my own can in my hands and wondered what North could possibly need to say to me. If whatever it was was so important, why didn’t he come over here and say it to my face, instead of sending me a cryptic napkin note? The answer, of course, had to be Hershey. What game was he playing here? What game was she? I watched her across the table as the four of us devoured our extra-large deep-dish, unanimously ignoring Lux’s suggestion that we stop at two pieces each, and wondered.
Rachel and Izzy were meeting some guys on the debate team for brownies after dinner, but I was too stuffed and too tired to do anything but sleep, preferably for about a day and a half.
“You guys go ahead,” I told them as we took turns swiping our handhelds to split the bill. “I’ve gotta go to bed.”
“I’ll go back with you,” Hershey said. When it was my turn to pay, she waved my phone away and double-swiped hers. “My treat.”
As we parted ways on the sidewalk, Hershey linked her arm through mine. As if on cue, we yawned in perfect unison then immediately lapsed into exhausted, slightly maniacal giggles.
“I’m so tired, I can barely feel my legs,” Hershey said as we crossed the street to cut through the park, arms still linked.
“I’m so tired, I think I’m already asleep,” I said.
We giggled again then fell into a comfortable silence. Just as I was about to ask her about North, Hershey cleared her throat. “Can we talk about the voice?” she asked. I felt myself stiffen. Hershey had to have felt it too, which is probably why she didn’t wait for my answer. “I’ve never heard it,” she said before I could shut her down. “Even when I was little. I used to envy the kids that did.”