Adam Levin - The Instructions

“Who is this?” she said.

What’s important, Ms. Sampsel, is you deliver our message.

“Who is this?” she said.

We’re your savior, Ms. Sampsel, we’re the enemy who’ll save you, the only one who can. Only the love in the heart of your enemy: only our love can save you.

“Who—”

This is our message, Ms. Sampsel. Don’t fuck it up with silly questions, now. It’s only the love in the heart of your enemy, not the cops who are busy elsewhere, not the firemen stuck on the other side of town trying to save those who need no saving — you’ll see, Ms. Sampsel, you’ll call them up and they’ll call you a liar, they’ll tell you you’re pranking, you’ll feel like we do, every fucking day, EVERY! FUCKING! DAY! MS. SAMPSEL! It is only our love, the love of your enemy — only your enemy can save you, Ms. Sampsel. Tell it to Barney, tell it to the jocks, tell it to your congressman and President. Today we blow up your school out of love. If things don’t change, if you don’t love us back, our love dies tomorrow, then you and your students. You’ve got twenty-one minutes til the first explosion. We love you, Ms. Sampsel, each and every one of you. We love each and every one of you and so you are warned and so you are saved. By us, Ms. Sampsel, not the authorities. As-salamu alaykum, shalom and om. Evacuate now or return to dust.

I hung up on Sampsel and dialed 911. Two more calls to finish hyperblinkering.

“Emergency Services.”

Please help, I whispered, Miles Nolan’s got a gun.

“Who is this?”

Matty Manx. Please help. Miles Nolan’s got a gun.

“Okay then, ‘Matty,’ where are you this time?”

I’m under the desk. Oh Jesus. Please.

“Under the—”

I hung up.

I counted to seven and dialed again.

This is Bobby Banks! Matty Manx just got shot! Mr. Abel said call you and I’m callin!

“Who is this?”

Bobby Banks! — hold on! Okay! — We’re at Twin Groves junior high. Bolan went toward the gym — Twin Groves Junior High I’m supposed to tell you. Niles Bolan! — Hold on! What? — Send everything you’ve got I’m supposed to tell you: Jiles Brolan’s crazy.

I hung up, left the bathroom, stood on a chair. The Side of Damage stopped shooting their guns.

You will , I told them, be asked about what happened, and when you’re asked — whether it’s by teachers or the cops, reporters or historians, your parents or your children, whether today, tomorrow, or years from now, whether the question’s why, how, or who — I want to make this clear — I want you to stay safe. I want you to tell the truth.

“It was Gurion.” “Gurion.” “Gurion did it.”

Good, I said.

10:29 AM: C2 (C1; C3; C4; C6 ;)

APTAKISIC SQUAW SQUAD

(DISMOUNT PYRAMID; BACKFLIP INTO TWO FACING LINES {“LEFT” AND “RIGHT”})

(ALL)

And one and two and three and

(LEFT)

Ready?

(RIGHT)

Yeah, go!

(ALL)

We’re Bamming!

We’re slamming!

B-A-M-M-I-N-G!

We’re Bamming!

We’re jamming!

B-A-M-M-I-N-G!

(LEFT)

Hey Bam.

(RIGHT)

Yeah Jen?

(LEFT)

Won’t you come and do the Bam

With me?

(RIGHT)

Sure Jen,

But first I must go put the Bam to him

(LEFT)

Who’s he?

(RIGHT)

Just some guy I’ll make my prop er ty!

(LEFT)

Go Bam

We all think that’s

H-O-T-T-T!

(RIGHT)

Yo Bam,

Bring that hot

D-A-M-A-G-E

(ALL)

We’re bamming!

B-A-M-M-I-N-G!

We’re jamming!

We’re Bamming!

B-A-M-M-I-N-G!

Bamming! Bamming!

Yay!

In C-Hall, winter thunder rumbled ceiling panels. It was helpful — heightening anticipation, jacking our chemicals up an extra tick — but I worried the weather it indicated would stall the scholars, if not discourage some of them entirely. Without a schoolbus to take them from the Metra station to Aptakisic, they had miles to walk. I knew a storm wouldn’t stop the likes of Emmanuel or Shai or Samuel Diamond, but the rest of them… What they would or wouldn’t do was no longer up to me, at least not for the moment, and I decided that was a blessing. It had to be. And if they didn’t show up, I could still protect the Side. They’d say I did it, and I’d say I did it, and most of the world would be happy to believe it. Fine, I thought. We’re fine, I thought.

I wrote Ben-Wa a pass to the Deaf Sentinel.

Tell him he’s needed in the Cage, I said.

“What if he asks why? I’m a really bad liar.”

“Start crying,” Jelly Rothstein told him. “He’ll follow you.”

“I can’t just start. Something needs to make me sad first.”

“You’re a tiny albino with a stupid name,” said Jenny Mangey, “and girls don’t think about you sexually.”

“I know,” Ben-Wa said. “It’s true. I know. I hate my name.”

He walked away crying.

Three minutes later, they stood at the chain-link gate. We stepped out of doorways and surrounded Jerry.

He said, “Show me your passes.” He had no idea. This stitchy-looking vein in his temple was throbbing: once, twice—

I projected a penny at it and he dropped, unconscious.

The soldiers all looked at their weapons, and for the length of a breath the only sound in the hall was the whispery ticking of hailfall on the roof.

Imagine what a quarter’ll do, I said.

“We’re gonna win,” said Christian Yagoda.

“No fucken shit,” said Vincie.

I recovered my penny, rolled Jerry for his keys and phone. Nakamook’s platoon dragged the body to the Cage.

“What should we tie him to?” Fulton Market asked.

“No time to tie him,” said Benji. “He won’t be able to break out of here, anyway.”

“He’ll find the Monitor when he wakes up, and untie him ,” said Ronrico.

“Maybe,” Benji said. “Maybe he’ll be afraid to. Either way, he’ll already know what we’re willing to do, and anyone else we lock in here — Jerry’ll tell them how lucky they are.”

“They’ll be way too fucken scared to fuck around with us then,” said Vincie.

Or too scared not to, I thought. If I was prisoner to a faction I knew had brutalized my cop, I’d wait beside the door with an improvised weapon: the next member of the faction who walked into my cage would get ambushed hard.

I told the Side of Damage: Remove all the chairs.

While they worked, I got the number off Jerry’s phone, saved it into Botha’s as “Wolf.”

I gave Ben-Wa Jerry’s, and called it with Botha’s.

It rang.

That’s the only number you answer, I said. Save it as “Gurion.”

Ben-Wa saved it.

The Flunky came back for more chairs. He tried to grab five and dropped his weapon. Potentials I’d not yet foreseen occurred to me.

Flunky, I said.

The Flunky came over.

I climbed on a chair so he wouldn’t have to kneel, then wrote DAMAGE on his forehead in 12-gauge Darker.

“What is it?” he asked.

A blessing on your head.

“What for?” he said.

Protection.

I blessed all the rest of them and Benji blessed me.

The sentinel, blinking, started to mutter. Leevon kicked him. Then he was quiet.

“He wakes up again, he’ll pull the alarm,” Jelly said.

“The alarm’ll get pulled anyway,” said the Janitor.

“But maybe not so soon, though,” said Jelly.

Jelly was right. We put Jerry in the girls bathroom and closed the door, tore a carrel from the wall, and wedged it under the knob. The part of the wall the carrel’d covered looked naked. The Side began to strip the rest of the Cage.