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ranks with another rash of hives.
    isabel’s face is still missing from the ranking tables, but for some reason I can’t explain I still don’t say anything to her about it.
    “Are you all right, isabel?” I ask instead as we trudge back to the classroom for Organized Recreation. She nods wearily and we fall into our now familiar pit of silence. I look at where megan is sitting, the twins, cara, gisele and daria taking up the rest of the row. Some of the lower-ranked girls are sitting on the floor, congregating at her feet like she’s a deity, screaming with laughter. It used to be isabel at the center of everything, me by her side, made safe by her affection. cara catches me staring.
    “What do you think, freida?” She smiles, trying to include me.
    “Sorry, cara, I didn’t hear what you said.”
    “I said—”
    “Look!” megan cries, shoving an eFone blaring the Dome Dudes’ latest music video in cara’s face, and I’m left on the outside once more. I want to go over, to reclaim my position, but I feel shackled to isabel. I look at her, slumped in the seat beside me, seemingly unconcernedby the fact that her belly is folding into rolls of fat beneath her thin vest top. My skin itches with irritation at the sight.
    “Alphabetical order,” chastity-anne orders, materializing out of thin air. “It’s time.”
    We have Organized Recreation daily and it’s always the final class of the day. It was devised to combat female hysteria syndrome: any hysterical, overemotional girl behavior is deliberately induced in a controlled environment until the urges dissipate. We need extra sessions on the weekends or during the summer holidays, whenever we have more opportunity to infect each other.
    We line up and approach the desk to collect our meds from the chastity. The doors of the two glass boxes on either side of the desk swish open, allowing one girl in at a time before disappearing into the ground. I hold my breath as the doors close after me. What will happen if chastity-anne programs the elevator incorrectly and it goes too far?
    “Are you crying, #630?”
    “No, chastity-ruth.”
    “Good. Because you know what we do to girls who break the rules, don’t you? We send them Underground. Do you want to go Underground, #630?”
    The elevator opens into the Organized Recreation Space. It looks like an empty swimming pool lined with numerous pipes snaking their way Underground. Thirty individualglass coffins are lined up in five rows, six in each row. I climb into the box with my design number on it, picked out in baby-pink sequins. The glass door shuts and I wait anxiously for the other boxes to fill so that we can begin. chastity-anne nods and I swallow my meds.
    Hush. Hush. A shiver begins at my feet, swelling, spiraling up and down the core of my body. A beat pulses through the box, a melody throbbing in my ears, in my mind, in my heart. My spine undulates until I am boneless. A wave of rapture surges and I am engulfed by it. I am free. I am free of all this. My mind tears for a second and I fall back into the room, the edges of my anxiety sharpening again. I can see the lid of the glass box, can see the road map of ducts and wires crawling over the ceiling, can see the other girls staring out with sightless eyes. The mist chokes me again, smothering me until I feel nothing, nothing at all.
    The bell rings and we are switched off simultaneously, the doors springing open. I climb out, my legs wobbly. My mind is wired but lethargy is sucking at my body, the two parts of me cracking apart.
    The others look similarly exhausted. We half smile at each other as we shuffle back to the dorms, but we avoid conversation of any kind. I throw myself on my bed, praying for sleep, but I know it’s useless. Turning on my side, I press my fingertips into the glass wall, watching that girl in the mirror. Her features float off her face, swimming in the air before rearranging themselves in the strangest way. Her eyes are too