Page 12 of Black Hollow: Awakening

“Dude… you’re getting way too hyped,” Dan stated, without a shred of enthusiasm. “You think it’s going to be amazing, but they’ll just show us around one factory, throw some scientific jargon at us, give us a brochure, and tell us to get lost. And an internship? Seriously? Guys like you and me don’t stand a chance. They’ll handpick the top two percent of students with the highest grades in fields that interest them, make them offers, and that’ll be it.”

“So you’re not going?”

“Nope.”

“You know we have two hours of literature before we leave, right?”

“I’ll get the notes from you,” Danny mumbled, pressing his face into the pillow.

“Suit yourself. But just so you know, when I’m the director of research at KC in a few years and you’re wondering how it all happened, remember this day.”

Danny started laughing.

Will went to school. Of course, he didn’t really think he’d manage to get an internship at KC. Dan was right; they picked the best. That didn’t change the fact that he was genuinely excited about the trip. Though he supposedly had a mind for the humanities—science and math had always given him trouble—he actually found them far more interesting. He imagined it would be cool to see the factories and labs and hear about what they produced there.

After literature class, Will joined the large group of sophomores gathering in front of the school. Under the supervision of a few teachers, they set off for the Kubrick Corp. facility. On the way, Will sent Danny a text letting him know he’d go to the store afterward and asking if he wanted anything.

He had barely put his phone away when someone slammed into him. He heard a characteristic sorry near his ear and immediately scowled at Liam, who pushed past him to join Blake up ahead.

Will had no idea what was up with those assholes. Blake stared at him at every possible opportunity. Sometimes Will felt like he was being followed, because suddenly he wasn’t just seeing him in their shared classes, but during almost every break. Maybe he was becoming paranoid, or maybe Blake was trying to intimidate him.

There were people who would kill for that kind of attention from Alden, but Will wasn’t one of them. Blake was the worst. Will had no idea how he hadn’t seen it before. He didn’t want to accept that he’d been shallow enough to ignore Blake’s rotten character just because he was attractive. Alden wasn’t just unpleasant. He was straight-up nasty, sometimes even crude, especially toward girls, with whom he seemed to have a particular problem.

The only upside to the current situation was that Liam had finally learned to aim for the hoop and wasn’t pelting him in the back anymore.

The visit to Kubrick Corp. was exactly as he had imagined. They were divided into smaller groups. Each was taken to a different building. A well-informed assistant guided them, explaining the functions of the various departments, rooms, and machines in a professional and polite manner. Will was in heaven. The only thing that annoyed him was Norma Reed, who was giggling and whispering right behind him, apparently having made it her mission to flirt with two guys at once.

Finally, all the groups merged back into one, gathering in the main building, in a huge production hall filled with dozens of different machines. A man in an elegant, navy-blue suit was standing on a mezzanine. When he was signaled that everyone was present, he smiled broadly and descended the metal stairs, stopping about halfway down.

“Welcome,” he said. A small microphone was clipped to his shirt, so despite the noise of the machinery, his voice carried clearly from speakers placed throughout the room. “My name is Nathaniel Kubrick.”

Will was impressed. He hadn’t expected to see the owner of the company in person. Kubrick looked to be in his mid-thirties and wore glasses. His short-cropped hair was a distinctive purple hue, which always surprised Will. The man seemed quite formal, so the brightly colored hair didn’t seem to fit his image.

Applause broke out in the hall, but the CEO silenced it with a wave of his hand.

“There’s no need for that,” he said, still smiling warmly. “I should be the one welcoming you in such a manner—you, the future of this world, of our city, and, hopefully, our company. Your generation is burdened with a special kind of weight. You stand at a crossroads. At the intersection of worlds. In an age of such rapid scientific discovery, it is easy to reduce every wonder of nature to a few elements, feelings to chemicals, the principles of the world to a string of characters. You must therefore answer the question for yourselves…”

“Will.”

Will glanced over with irritation, but his expression immediately softened when he saw Oscar.

“Hey,” Summers said with his wonderful smile.

“Oh. Hey,” Will replied in a whisper, instantly losing interest in the speech.

“This is actually pretty interesting,” Oscar noted in a low voice. “I thought it would be worse.”

“Yeah. Danny didn’t want to come.”

They exchanged smiles. Their conversations were always a little forced.

“We don’t have any classes together this year,” Oscar observed.

“Unfortunately not,” Will said with genuine regret.

“Too bad. I liked sitting with you in chemistry. I didn’t learn much, admittedly, but I still remember your rhyme about the piece of cheese in Professor Wilson’s beard.”

Will laughed quietly.